Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Supplement: Hafiz, Amin al- - Madani, Abdul Nasser

Amin al-Hafiz (or Hafez) led a coup d'etat against the government of Syria in
1963, in the turbulent years after the break-up of the United Arab Republic
(UAR).After the coup he installed the
National Council of the Revolutionary Command (NCRC) at the head of government.
The NCRC was dominated by the Syrian branch of the radical, pan-Arab Ba'ath Party,
and Hafiz became its President. As President, he instituted socialist reforms
and oriented his country towards the Eastern Bloc.

On February 23, 1966, Hafiz was overthrown by a radical Ba'athist faction
headed by Chief of Staff Salah Jadid. A late warning telegram of the coup
d'état was sent from President Gamal Abdel Nasser to Nasim Al Safarjalani (The
General Secretary of the Presidential Council), on the early morning of the
coup d'état. The coup sprung out of factional rivalry between Jadid's "regionalist"
(qutri) camp of the Ba'ath Party, which promoted ambitions for a Greater Syria
and the more traditionally pan-Arab Hafiz faction, called the
"nationalist" (qawmi) faction. Jadid's supporters were also seen as
more radically left-wing. But the coup was also supported and led by officers
from Syria's religious minorities, especially the Alawite Muslims and the
Druze, whereas Hafiz belonged to the majority Sunni population. Alawis have
ruled Syria ever since.

After the coup, Hafiz lived in exile until 2005, when he was quietly permitted
to return to Syria. He died in Aleppo on December 17, 2009.

Halabi, Suleiman al-
1777-1800
The assassin of Jean Baptiste Kleber.

Suleiman al-Halabi (1777-1800), also known as Soleyman El-Halaby (Kurdish:
Seleman Ous Qopar), was a Syrian student who assassinated French general Jean
Baptiste Kléber. He was tortured by burning his hand to the bone before being
executed by impalement.

Suleiman al-Halabi was born in 1777 in Kukan village, Afrin. His religious
father, Mohammad Amin, worked in the profession of selling butter and olive
oil.

In 1797, al-Halabi's father sent him to Cairo, Egypt to study Islamic sciences
at Al-Azhar University. After three years of study, al-Halabi returned to
Kukan. There he was surprised to learn of his father's poverty as a result of
heavy fines and taxation demanded by Ottoman authorities.

The authorities offered to lift his imprisoned father's financial burden if he
would assassinate French Army General Jean Baptiste Kléber. He agreed and
traveled to Cairo to carry out the assassination.

On June 14, 1800, al-Halabi approached Kléber's home in the guise of a beggar
seeking an audience with Kléber. After they shook hands, he violently pulled
the general toward him and stabbed him four times with a stiletto. Kléber's
chief engineer tried to defend him and was stabbed but not mortally wounded.

Al-Halabi subsequently hid in a nearby park where he was found by French
soldiers. He was searched him and they found his stiletto. He was arrested and
tortured, his right arm burnt to the bone while he denied any relationship with
Sheikh Al-Sharkawi or the popular resistance movements. He was tried and
sentenced to death by impalement.

Today, al-Halabi’s skull and stiletto are on display at the Musée de l'Homme in
Paris, under the caption, "Criminal," written in French.

Hamengkubuwono IV, also spelled Hamengkubuwana IV (1804 – 1828), was the fourth
sultan of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, reigning from April 3, 1814 - December 6,
1822, and then from August 17, 1826 - January 2, 1828. His reign was a period
of political deterioration that ultimately led up to the Java War. Upon his
death, rumors circulated that he had been poisoned. His three-year-old son,
Hamengkubuwana V, ascended the throne amid controversy over who would act as
regent.

Hamza El Din
1929-2006
Nubian oud player and composer.

Hamza El Din was graduated as an electrical engineer when electrical engineers
were a scarcity in his homeland of Sudan and in Egypt where he got his
degree.However, without any musical
background, his heart was drawn to Nubian music, and he learned the oud to a
level of becoming one of the few living masters of this instrument.Hamza managed to re-invent Nubian music
traditions.His Sufi background which
included listening to the lectures of his grandfather on Rumi and other famous
Sufi mystics and poets led him to become adept at Sufism and Sufi music as
well.

Hamza El Din was born in Nubia (Wadi Haifa, Sudan) in 1929 along the Nile River
near the southern Egyptian border (Aswan).He was one of the many thousands suffering from the Nubian Diaspora
following the loss of hometowns and villages after inundation by the waters of
the Aswan High Dam.His sentiments were
deeply expressed through his songs, where his longing is expressed by calling
Nubia the daughter of mother earth.The
name of Hamza El Din became synonymous with Nubia and Nubian music and
culture.His long and cumbersome journey
was accompanied by his oud (lute) and tar (a traditional Nubian
instrument).His style was simple and
majestically powerful.With a
charismatic voice, and only a few taps on the tar and some tender play on the
oud, Hamza El Din is capable of making all Nubians hear themselves.

Hamza El Din grew up in a culture rich in melodius and rhythmic music.While studying engineering in Cairo, he took
up the oud, A six-string lute which is a principal instrument of Arabic
classical music.Later, while holding down
full-time jobs, he began studing music formally at the Conservatory of Music in
Cairo.During this time, and during
subsequent study at the Academy of St. Cecelia in Rome, his work began to
combine elements of Nubian and Egyptian traditional music within formal
structures.

After Hamza's hometown of Toshka was flooded following the building of a dam in
the 1960s, Hamza became determined to preserve the culture of that region.He studied music at Ibrahim Shafiq's
Institute of Music and at the King Fuad Institute for Middle Eastern
Music.

First discovered by Western audiences through his performances at the 1964
Newport Folk Festival, Hamza got his first recording contract through the help
of Joan Baez.
In 1964, he made his first recording, Music of Nubia, for Vanguard
Recordings.In the same year, he
embarked on his first concert tour of the United States.

Hamza's 1970 Nonesuch recording, Escalay: Water Wheel is legendary among
musicians and connoisseurs.His best
known recording in the United States is Eclipses, produced and engineered by
Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart.Hamza's music was part of the sound track for such movies such as the
Francis Ford Coppola's Black Stallion, You Are What You Eat, and Robinson's
Garden of Japan.His latest releases (on
Japanese labels) include: Nubiana Suite "Live Tokyo", a King
recording Songs of the Nile (on the JVC World Sounds series), and a companion
release to his best-selling album of the same title, (Nile no Nagareno Yoni).Hamza appeared regularly with the Kronos
Quartet, which includes Escalay: Water Wheel on their chart-topping Pieces of
Africa album.

After that, he traveled, performed and taught music in North America, Europe,
and the Middle East, Asia and Australia.In 1981, he went to Japan to make a comparative study of Biwa and Oud
(funded by a Japan Foundation grant).Impressed with the country and its peoples, he performed there
frequently.

Performing brilliantly on the Oud (the precursor to the lute, pipa and biwa)
and the Tar (the ancient single-skinned drum of the upper Nile), along with
haunting voice and spellbinding compositions, Hamza El Din combined the
pleasures and subtleties of Arabic music with his indigenous music of his
native Nubia.In his masterful hands,
the oud became a virtuoso instrument as well as an accompaniment to his gentle
and hypnotic singing.He single
handedly created a new music, essentially a Nubian-Arabic fusion, but one in
line with both traditions and informed by Western conservatory training.His music captured the interest of millions
of listeners from Europe, Japan, and North America.

Hamza El Din died on May 22, 2006, in Berkeley, California, from a gall bladder
infection.

Harun
c,1250 B.C.T.
Prophet of Islam.

Harun was a prophet mentioned in the Qur'an. In the Bible he is known as Aaron
(Aharōn in Hebrew).

Harun was the younger brother of Musa, who is known as Moses in the Bible. Like
his brother, he was a prophet who was tasked by God with saving the Israelites
from the tyrannical Pharaoh. Harun was a gifted speaker, and would often speak
for Musa who suffered from a speech impediment. He was largely responsible for
teaching the Israelites the way of worship as it was laid out in the Torah of
that time.

According to the Qur'an, Musa prayed to God to grant his brother Harun the gift
of prophecy so that he could help him in all his tasks ahead. God granted Musa
his request and told him that he could take his brother along with him, and
that he should be gentle in his language and patient in all his dealings.

Islam holds that Harun held no part in causing the Israelites to worship the
golden calf. Rather, he was overpowered and was threatened with being killed by
his people. When Musa returned from the mount, he immediately blamed Harun and
seized him by his beard, but Harun then gave his explanation, after which Musa
prayed to God to forgive both of them.

Muslims identify the prophets of Islam as those humans chosen by Allah to teach
mankind.According to Islamic tradition,
each prophet conveyed the same basic ideas of Islam (defined as submission to
God, to his words and to his orders). They brought the belief in a single God
and in the avoidance of idolatry and sin. Each came to preach Islam and told of
the coming of the final law-bearing prophet and messenger of God: Muhammad.
Each prophet directed a message to a different group and each prophet taught
minor variations in sharia (or the practice of religion) to a different target
audience.

Islamic tradition holds that God sent messengers to every nation. Muslims
believe that God finally sent Muhammad to "seal" and to convey the
divine message to the whole world (to sum up and to finalize the word of God),
whereas he had previously sent the other messengers (rusul) to convey their
messages to a specific group of people or to an individual nation.

Muslims regard Adam as the first prophet and Muhammad as the last prophet;
(from the traditional interpretation of Muhammad's title Seal of the Prophets).
Islam regards Jesus as a rasul (and sometimes as a nabi) because he received
wahy (revelation) from God, through which God revealed the Injil (Gospel) to
him. Muslims have great respect for Jesus (known by the Arabic form of his
given name as Eesa or Isa) and for his mother Maryam. They do not, however,
regard Jesus as the son of God.

Islamic theology recognises as many as 224,000 prophets. According to Wheeler,
the Qur'an identifies 25 prophets by name, starting with Adam and ending with
Muhammad.

In the Hebrew Bible, Aaron (Hebrew; Ahărōn, Arabic: ‎Hārūn), sometimes called
Aaron the Levite, was the brother of Moses, (Exodus 6:16-20) and represented
the priestly functions of his tribe, becoming the first High Priest of the
Israelites. While Moses was receiving his education at the Egyptian royal court
and during his exile among the Midianites, Aaron and his sister remained with
their kinsmen in the eastern border-land of Egypt (Goshen). Aaron there gained
a name for eloquent and persuasive speech; so that when the time came for the
demand upon the Pharaoh to release Israel from captivity, Aaron became his
brother’s nabi, or spokesman, to his own people (Exodus 7:1) and, after their
unwillingness to hear, to the Pharaoh himself (Exodus 7:9). Various dates for
his life have been proposed, ranging from approximately 1600 to 1200 BC In
Islam, Aaron is a prophet sent to spread the message of God and he is
frequently mentioned in the Qur'an.

The meaning of the name "Aaron" is enlightened, exalted, mountain of
strength.Aaron’s function included the
duties of speaker and implied personal dealings with the Egyptian royal court
on behalf of Moses, who was always the central moving figure. The part played
by Aaron in the events that preceded the Exodus was, therefore, ministerial,
and not directive. He, along with Moses, performed “signs” before his people
which impressed them with a belief in the reality of the divine mission of the
brothers (Exodus 4:15–16).

At the command of Moses, Aaron stretched out his rod in order to bring on the
first three plagues (Exodus 7:19, 8:1,12). In the infliction of the remaining
plagues he appears to have acted merely as the attendant of Moses, whose
outstretched rod drew the divine wrath upon the Pharaoh and his subjects
(Exodus 9:23, 10:13,22). The potency of Aaron’s rod had already been
demonstrated by its victory over the rods of the Egyptian magicians, which it
swallowed after all the rods alike had been turned into serpents (Exodus 7:9).
During the journey in the wilderness, Aaron is not always prominent or active;
and he sometimes appears guilty of rebellious or treasonable conduct. At the
battle with Amalek, he is chosen with Hur to support the hand of Moses that
held the “rod of God” (Exodus 17:9). When the revelation was given to Moses at
Mount Sinai, he headed the elders of Israel who accompanied Moses on the way to
the summit. Joshua, however, was admitted with his leader to the very presence
of the Lord, while Aaron and Hur remained below to look after the people Exodus
24:9-14. It was during the prolonged absence of Moses that Aaron yielded to the
clamors of the people, and made a Golden Calf as a visible image of the
divinity who had delivered them from Egypt (Exodus 32:1-6). (It should be noted
that in the account given of the same events, in the Qur'an, Aaron is not the
idol-maker and upon Moses' return begged his pardon as he had felt mortally
threatened by the Israelites (Quran 7:142-152).) At the intercession of Moses,
Aaron was saved from the plague which smote the people (Deuteronomy 9:20,
Exodus 32:35), although it was to Aaron’s tribe of Levi that the work of
punitive vengeance was committed (Exodus 32:26).

At the time when the tribe of Levi was set apart for the priestly service,
Aaron was anointed and consecrated to the priesthood, arrayed in the robes of
his office, and instructed in its manifold duties (Exodus 28, Exodus 29).

On the very day of his consecration, his sons, Nadab and Abihu, were consumed
by fire from the Lord for having offered incense in an unlawful manner (Leviticus
10).

Scholarly consensus is that in Aaron's high priesthood the sacred writer
intended to describe a model, the prototype, so to say, of the Jewish high
priest. God, on Mount Sinai instituting a worship, also instituted an order of
priests. According to the patriarchal customs, the firstborn son in every
family used to perform the functions connected with God's worship. It might
have been expected, consequently, that Reuben's family would be chosen by God
for the ministry of the new altar. However, according to the biblical narrative
it was Aaron who was the object of God's choice. To what jealousies this gave
rise later, has been indicated above. The office of the Aaronites was at first
merely to take care of the lamp which was to burn perpetually before the veil
of the tabernacle Exodus 27:21. A more formal calling soon followed (Exodus
28:1). Aaron and his sons, distinguished from the commoners by their sacred
functions, were also to receive holy garments suitable to their office.

Aaron offered the various sacrifices and performed the many ceremonies of the
consecration of the new priests, according to the divine instructions (Exodus
29), and repeated these rites for seven days, during which Aaron and his sons
were entirely separated from the rest of the people. When, on the eighth day,
the high priest had inaugurated his office of sacrifice by killing the animals,
he blessed the people (very likely according to the prescriptions of Numbers
6:24-26) and, with Moses, entered into the tabernacle to possess it. They
"came forth and blessed the people. And the glory of the Lord appeared to
all the multitude: And behold a fire, coming forth from the Lord, devoured the
holocaust, and the fat that was upon the altar: which when the multitude saw,
they praised the Lord, falling on their faces" (Leviticus 9:23-24). In
this way the institution of the Aaronic priesthood was established.

From the time of the sojourn at Mount Sinai, where he became the anointed
priest of Israel, Aaron ceased to be the minister of Moses, his place being
taken by Joshua. He is mentioned in association with Miriam in a jealous
complaint against the exclusive claims of Moses as the Lord’s prophet. The
presumption of the murmurers was rebuked, and Miriam was smitten with Tzaraath.
Aaron entreated Moses to intercede for her, at the same time confessing the sin
and folly that prompted the uprising. Aaron himself was not struck with the
plague on account of sacerdotal immunity; and Miriam, after seven days’
quarantine, was healed and restored to favor (Numbers 12). Micah a prophet in
Judaism, mentions Moses, Aaron, and Miriam as the leaders of Israel after the
Exodus (a judgment wholly in accord with the tenor of the narratives). In the
present instance it is made clear by the express words of the oracle (Numbers
12:6-8) that Moses was unique among men as the one with whom the Lord spoke
face to face. The failure to recognize or concede this prerogative of their
brother was the sin of Miriam and Aaron.

The validity of the exclusive priesthood of the family of Aaron was attested
after the ill-fated rebellion of Korah, who was a first cousin of Aaron. When
the earth had opened and swallowed up the leaders of the insurgents (Numbers
16:25-35), Eleazar, the son of Aaron, was commissioned to take charge of the
censers of the dead priests. And when the plague had broken out among the
people who had sympathized with the rebels, Aaron, at the command of Moses,
took his censer and stood between the living and the dead till the plague was
stayed (Numbers 17:1-15, 16:36-50).

Another memorable transaction followed. Each of the tribal princes of Israel
took a rod and wrote his name upon it, and the twelve rods were laid up over
night in the tent of meeting. The next morning Aaron’s rod was found to have
budded and blossomed and produced ripe almonds (Numbers 17:8). The miracle
proved merely the prerogative of the tribe of Levi; but now a formal
distinction was made in perpetuity between the family of Aaron and the other
Levites. While all the Levites (and only Levites) were to be devoted to sacred
services, the special charge of the sanctuary and the altar was committed to
the Aaronites alone (Numbers 18:1-7).

Aaron, like Moses, was not permitted to enter Canaan with the others. The
reason alleged is that the two brothers showed impatience at Meribah (Kadesh)
in the last year of the desert pilgrimage (Numbers 20:12-13), when Moses
brought water out of a rock to quench the thirst of the people. The action was
construed as displaying a want of deference to the Lord, since they had been
commanded to speak to the rock, whereas Moses struck it with the staff, twice
(Numbers 20:7-11).

Of the death of Aaron we have two accounts. The principal one gives a detailed
statement that soon after the incident at Meribah, Aaron, with his son Eleazar
and Moses, ascended Mount Hor. There Moses stripped Aaron of his priestly
garments and transferred them to Eleazar. Aaron died on the summit of the
mountain, and the people mourned for him thirty days (Numbers 20:22-29; compare
33:38-39). The other account is found in Deuteronomy 10:6, where Moses is
reported as saying that Aaron died at Moserah and was buried there. There is a
significant amount of travel between these two points, as the itinerary in
Numbers 33:31–37 records seven stages between Moseroth (Mosera) and Mount Hor.

The older prophets and prophetical writers beheld in their priests the
representatives of a religious form inferior to the prophetic truth; men
without the spirit of God and lacking the will-power requisite to resist the
multitude in its idolatrous proclivities. Thus Aaron, the first priest, ranks
below Moses: he is his mouthpiece, and the executor of the will of God revealed
through Moses, although it is pointed out that it is said fifteen times in the
Pentateuch that “the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron.” Under the influence of the
priesthood which shaped the destinies of the nation under Persian rule, a
different ideal of the priest was formed, as is learned from Malachi 2:4–7; and
the prevailing tendency was to place Aaron on a footing equal with Moses.

Recently, the tradition that Kohanim are actually descended from a single
patriarch, Aaron, was found to be apparently consistent with genetic testing.
The majority of Kohanim, but not all, share a direct male lineage with a common
Y chromosome, and testing was done across sectors of the Jewish population to
see if there was any commonality between the Y chromosomes of Kohanim. The
results were found to cluster rather closely around a specific DNA signature, found
in the Semitic Haplogroup J1, which the researchers named the Cohen modal
haplotype, implying that many of the Kohanim do share a distinctive common
ancestry. This information was also used to support the claim that the Lemba (a
sub-Saharan African tribe) are in fact descendant from a group of Jewish
priests.

Aaron married Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon (Exod
6:23). The sons of Aaron were Eleazar, Ithamar, Nadab and Abihu. A descendant
of Aaron is an Aaronite, or Kohen, meaning Priest.

Aaron was Moses' older brother. He was born three years before Moses, before
the Pharaoh's edict requiring the death of male Hebrew children. He was the
ancestor of all koheins, the founder of the priesthood, and the first Kohein
Gadol (High Priest). Aaron and his descendants tended the altar and offered
sacrifices. Aaron's role, unlike Moses', was inherited; his sons continued the
priesthood after him (Num. 20:26).

Aaron served as Moses' spokesman. As discussed above, Moses was not eloquent
and had a speech impediment, so Aaron spoke for him (Ex. 4:10-16). Contrary to
popular belief, it was Aaron, not Moses, who cast down the staff that became a
snake before Pharaoh (Ex. 7:10-12). It was Aaron, not Moses, who held out his
staff to trigger the first three plagues against Egypt (Ex. 7:19-20; Ex. 8:1-2
or 8:5-6; Ex. 8:12-13 or 8:16-17). According to Jewish tradition, it was also
Aaron who performed the signs for the elders before they went to Pharaoh (Ex.
4:30).

Aaron's most notable personal quality is that he was a peacemaker.In fact, Aaron loved peace so much that he
participated in the incident of the Golden Calf (Ex. 32), constructing the idol
in order to prevent dissension among the people. Aaron intended to buy time
until Moses returned from Mount Sinai (he was late, and the people were
worried), to discourage the people by asking them to give up their precious
jewelry in order to make the idol, and to teach them the error of their ways in
time (Ex. 32:22).

Aaron is described in the Old Testament book of Exodus as a son of Amram and
Jochebed of the tribe of Levi, three years older than his brother Moses. He
acted together with his brother in the desperate situation of the Israelites in
Egypt and took an active part in the Exodus. Although Moses was the actual
leader, Aaron acted as his “mouth.” The two brothers went to the pharaoh
together, and it was Aaron who told him to let the people of Israel go, using
his magic rod in order to show the might of Yahweh. When the pharaoh finally
decided to release the people, Yahweh gave the important ordinance of the
Passover, the annual ritual remembrance of the Exodus, to Aaron and Moses. But
Moses alone went up on Mount Sinai, and he alone was allowed to come near to
Yahweh. Moses later was ordered to “bring near” Aaron and his sons, and they
were anointed and consecrated to be priests “by a perpetual statute.” Aaron’s
sons were to take over the priestly garments after him. Aaron is not
represented as wholly blameless. It was he who, when Moses was delayed on Mount
Sinai, made the golden calf that was idolatrously worshiped by the people.

Once a year, on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), Aaron was allowed to come
into the Holy of Holies, the most sacred part of the tabernacle, or sanctuary,
in which the Hebrew tribes worshiped, bringing his offering. Together with his
sister, Miriam, Aaron spoke against Moses because he had married a foreigner (a
Cushite woman); but, as in the episode of the golden calf, the narrative tells
how Aaron was merely reproved, though Miriam was punished, for the offense. In
the rebellion of Korah the Levite, however, Aaron stood firmly at the side of
Moses.

Aaron is a central figure in the traditions about the Exodus, though his role
varies in importance. At the beginning he seems to be coequal with Moses, but
after the march out of Egypt he is only a shadow at Moses’ side. Moses is
obviously the leading figure in the tradition, but it is also clear that he is
pictured as delegating his authority in all priestly and cultic matters to
Aaron and his sons.

Hasan di Tiro
1925-2010
Founder of the Free Aceh Movement.

Tengku Hasan Muhammad di Tiro (25 August 1925 – 3 June 2010) was the founder of
the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), an organization which attempted to separate Aceh
from Indonesia during the 1970s. The Free Aceh Movement surrendered its
separatist goals and was disarmed as agreed to in the Helsinki peace deal of
2005.

Tengku Hasan Muhammad di Tiro was a grandson of Tengku Cik di Tiro, an
Indonesian national hero who was killed fighting the Dutch in 1891.

Coming from a prominent family, with blood links to former Aceh sultans, from
the village of Tiro (Pidie Regency), di Tiro studied in Yogyakarta before
proceeding to pursue further studies in the United States, where he did
part-time work for the Indonesian Mission to the United Nations. While a
student in New York in 1953, he declared himself the "foreign
minister" of the rebellious Darul Islam movement, which in Aceh was led by
Daud Bereueh. Due to this action, he was immediately stripped of his Indonesian
citizenship, causing him to be imprisoned for a few months on Ellis Island as
an illegal alien. The Darul Islam rebellion in Aceh ended in a peace deal in
1962. Under the peace deal Aceh was granted autonomy.

Di Tiro re-appeared in Aceh in 1974, where he applied for a pipeline contract
in the new Mobil Oil gas plant to be built in Lhokseumawe area. He was outbid
by Bechtel, in a controverted process in which di Tiro thought the central
government had too much control. As a result of this loss, and the death of his
brother due to what he considered to be deliberate neglect by a doctor of
Javanese ethnicity, di Tiro began organising a separatist movement using his
old Darul Islam contacts.

He declared his organisation as the Free Aceh Movement ("Gerakan Aceh
Merdeka") on December 4, 1976. Amongst its goals was the total
independence of Aceh from Indonesia. Di Tiro chose independence as one of GAM's
goals instead of autonomy due to his focus on Acehnese ethnic-nationalism, as
opposed to the former Darul Islam rebellion who sought to overthrow the secular
Pancasila ideology of Indonesia and create a pan-Indonesian Islamic state based
on sharia. In his "Declaration of Independence", he questioned
Indonesia's right to exist as it was a multi-cultural nation consisting of
multitudes of ethnicities with little in common except a common history of
Dutch colonialism. As such, the Acehnese ethnic-group, who according to him was
superior due to their particularly strong resistance to Dutch colonialism,
should be separate from the "fraudulent" state of Indonesia and
revert to its independent status as prior to the Dutch invasion of 1873.

Due to this new focus on ethnic-chauvinism, GAM's major activities mostly
consisted of attacking non-Acehnese in an effort to cleanse Aceh of other
ethnic groups, particularly the Javanese people.

In 1977, after leading a GAM attack in which one American engineer was killed
and another American and South Korean engineer injured, Hasan di Tiro was hunted
by the Indonesian military. He was shot in the leg in a military ambush, and
fled to Malaysia.

After 1980, di Tiro lived in Stockholm, Sweden, and obtained Swedish
citizenship. After the tsunami of 2004, the GAM and the Indonesian government
agreed to a peace treaty in which more autonomy for Aceh was accepted by di
Tiro and his followers. In October 2008, after 30 years of exile, di Tiro
returned to the Indonesian province of Aceh.

Hasan di Tiro returned to Aceh after 30 years of exile on October 11, 2008.
However, he was too frail even to deliver his own speech at his welcome rally.
He stayed for two weeks before returning to Sweden. On October 17, 2009 he
returned to Aceh for the second time and stayed there. In June 2010, he
obtained his Indonesian citizenship back after living years with a Swedish
passport. Shortly afterwards, he died on June 3, 2010, in a Banda Aceh hospital
after two weeks in intensive care.

Hassan Nooraddeenul Iskandhar I
? - 1799
The Sultan of the Maldives.

Sultan Al hajj Hassan Nooraddeenul Iskandhar I was the Sultan of the Maldives
from 1779–1799. He was the son of Sultan Muhammad Mu'iz ud-din. Nooraddeen went
on hajj twice and on the second occasion he battled with the Sharif of Mecca.
He died in Jeddah, together with 238 of the men of the Maldivian army, from an
infectious disease called kashividhuri or smallpox.

Hayek, Nicolas George
1928-2010
Swiss-Lebanese entrepreneur, co-founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board of the
Swatch Group.

Nicolas George Hayek (19 February 1928, Beirut – 28 June 2010, Biel), was born,
the second of three children, to a Lebanese mother and a Lebanese-American
father, both from well-regarded Greek-Orthodox Christian Lebanese families with
deep roots in Lebanon's Northern Governorate of El-Koura. His father was
trained as a dentist at Loyola University Chicago. His older sister Mona is the
widow of the renowned Lebanese architect Joseph Philippe Karam. His younger
brother Sam, also a Swiss citizen, is a former CEO of the Swiss group Sibra (Biere
Cardinal).

In his early twenties, Hayek met his Swiss wife Marianne in Beirut. They moved
to Switzerland and had two children, Nayla and Nicolas (Nick), Jr.

Hayek started his business career as a management consultant. He was the
founder, Chairman of the Board and C.E.O. of Hayek Engineering Inc., a
management consulting firm headquartered in Zurich. Hayek made his mark quickly
on the Swiss and European business scene by consulting and effecting successful
turnarounds at several of the largest European multinationals.

In the early 1980s, Hayek, by then one of the most trusted business figures in
Switzerland, was called upon by a group of Swiss bankers to oversee a
liquidation of ASUAG and SSIH, two Swiss watch-making firms which were in
turmoil due to heavy competition from Japanese watch manufacturers such as
Seiko and Citizen Watch. Hayek believed that the Swiss watch manufacturing
industry could remain competitive with a restructuring and a focus on different
business areas. After having engineered and implemented the reorganization of
the ASUAG and SSIH watch companies for more than four years, finally bringing
about their merger, Hayek, with a group of Swiss investors, took over a
majority shareholding in the new group in 1985. He became Chairman of the Board
of Directors and Chief Executive Officer in 1986.

Hayek played a decisive role in the recovery of the Swatch Group with its watch
brands Swatch, Blancpain, Omega, Longines, Rado, Tissot, Certina, Mido,
Hamilton, Pierre Balmain, Calvin Klein, Flik Flak, Breguet and Lanco. The
strategies he developed in the early 1980s led to the success of the entire
Swiss watch industry and regained its leading position worldwide since 1984.

Hayek was awarded the title of Doctor honoris causa of Law and Economics of the
Faculty of Beni Culturali of the University of Bologna (Italy) in June 1998,
after being awarded doctor honoris causa of Law and Economics of the University
of Neuchatel (Switzerland) in 1996.

Hayek is also credited with having a fundamental role in the creation of the
Smart Car, a small European car created for inner city use by Mercedes
Benz.Original names for the car
revolved around the Swatch name — and even today aspects of the car such as its
interchangeable body panels are clearly linked with the Swatch philosophy.

In 1995, Hayek's daughter, Nayla Hayek joined the Board of Directors of the
Swatch Group and in early 2010, she became co-Vice-Chairman of the Board. In
2003, his son, Nick Hayek, Jr. became the CEO of the Swatch Group. Hayek remained
Chairman of the Board of the Swatch Group until his death.

In 2010, Hayek was rated the world's 232nd richest person with an estimated net
worth of $3.9 billion.

Hayek died on June 28, 2010 of cardiac arrest during work at the Swatch Group
headquarters in Biel.

On June 30, 2010, two days after his passing, the Board elected Hayek's
daughter, Nayla, to replace him as Chairman.

Salma Hayek, in full Salma Valgarma Hayek Jiménez de Pinault (b. September 2,
1966, Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico), was Mexican-Lebanese actress, director,
and producer known for her sultry good looks and intelligence. At the end of
the 20th century, she broke barriers as one of the first Latina actresses to
establish a successful film career in the United States.

Hayek grew up in Mexico but attended Catholic school in New Orleans before
enrolling at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. In the capital she
was noticed by television producers who cast her in the Mexican daytime
television drama Teresa (1989). In 1991, Hayek moved to Los Angeles to pursue a
film career. After taking a small part in Mi Vida Loca (1993; My Crazy Life),
she was noticed by director Robert Rodriguez, who cast her in Desperado (1995),
alongside Antonio Banderas. Exposure in the action film catapulted the young
actress into stardom. Her next major role was in another Rodriguez film, From
Dusk Till Dawn (1996), a gory vampire movie that also starred George Clooney and
Quentin Tarantino. In 1997 she appeared opposite Matthew Perry in the romantic
comedy Fools Rush In and two years later portrayed an exotic dancer and muse in
the religious satire Dogma (1999).

In 2002 Hayek both produced and starred in Frida, a biopic about the Mexican
painter Frida Kahlo. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including a
best actress nod for Hayek. She also earned critical praise for her directorial
debut, the television movie The Maldonado Miracle (2003). The inspirational drama,
set in a struggling small town that becomes the site of an alleged miracle,
earned Hayek an Emmy Award for outstanding direction. Hayek later became
executive producer of the hit television series Ugly Betty (2006–10), a comedy
set at a fashion magazine. She also had recurring roles on that show, in
2006–07, and on the sitcom 30 Rock, in 2009. Meanwhile, she continued to act in
such films as Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), with Banderas and Johnny Depp;
After the Sunset (2004); Ask the Dust (2006); Lonely Hearts (2006); and Cirque
du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (2009). In 2010 she costarred with Adam
Sandler and Chris Rock in the comedy Grown Ups, and the following year she
provided a voice in the animated Puss in Boots, which featured Banderas in the
title role.

Hayek was born in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico, the daughter of Diana
Jiménez Medina, an opera singer and talent scout, and Sami Hayek Dominguez, an
oil company executive who once ran for mayor of Coatzacoalcos. Hayek's father
is of Lebanese descent, while her mother is of Spanish descent. Her first given
name, Salma, is Arabic for "safe". Raised in a wealthy, devoutly
Roman Catholic family, she was sent to the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grand
Coteau, Louisiana, at the age of twelve. She attended college in Mexico City,
where she studied International Relations at the Universidad Iberoamericana.

Hazzard, Walt
1942-2011
American college, Olympic, and professional basketball player and college
basketball coach.

Walter "Walt" Raphael Hazzard Jr. (April 15, 1942 – November 18,
2011), also known as Mahdi Abdul-Rahman, was an American college, Olympic, and
professional basketball player and college basketball coach. He is best known
for his association with the men's basketball team at the University of
California, Los Angeles (UCLA), having been a star player for that team in the
1960s and having served as the team's head coach in the 1980s.

Hazzard attended Overbrook High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where his
teams went 89-3 and he was named the city's player of the year when he was a
senior. Hazzard then went on to UCLA, where he became an important player on
the varsity basketball team. In Hazzard's first season on the varsity squad,
the UCLA Bruins made their first Final Four appearance in the 1962 NCAA Men's
Division I Basketball Tournament. They lost to the eventual champion, the
Cincinnati Bearcats in the semi-finals.

UCLA's undefeated season, 1963–64, was in no small part due to Hazzard, his
backcourt partner Gail Goodrich, and the team's coach John Wooden. The team won
the NCAA Championship, and Hazzard was selected by the Associated Press as the
tournament's Most Valuable Player. Hazzard was chosen as an All-American and
also selected as College Player of the Year by the United States Basketball
Writers Association (USBWA). His number 42 jersey was retired by UCLA in 1996
in Pauley Pavilion, but Hazzard gave his permission for stand-out recruit Kevin
Love to wear the number.

Hazzard earned a spot on the 1964 Olympic basketball team for the United
States, which won the gold medal. He was the number 1 draft pick in the NBA
(National Basketball Association) draft of 1964 by the Los Angeles Lakers.

Hazzard later played in the NBA, first with the Los Angeles Lakers from 1964–1967,
then the Seattle SuperSonics, the Atlanta Hawks, the Buffalo Braves, and
briefly for the Golden State Warriors. He returned to the SuperSonics for the
1973-74 season, after which he retired from professional basketball.

While playing for the SuperSonics in their inaugural 1967-68 season, Hazzard
scored a career high 24.0 points per game, averaged 6.2 assists per game, and
was selected to play in the 1968 NBA All-Star Game. Seattle traded him to the
Hawks during the off-season for Lenny Wilkens. Hazzard's career high average in
assists came during the 1969-70 season, when he averaged 6.8 assist per game
while playing for the Hawks.

In 1984, Hazzard returned to UCLA as its men's basketball coach. That same
year, he was inducted (as Walt Hazzard) into the UCLA's Athletic Hall of Fame.
He coached for four seasons, winning 77 out of 125 games. The 1984-1985 UCLA
Bruin basketball team won the NIT championship. The 1986-1987 UCLA Bruin
basketball team won both the Pac-10 regular season championship as well as the
inaugural Pacific-10 Conference Men's Basketball Tournament.

During his professional basketball career, Hazzard converted to Islam and
changed his name to Mahdi Abdul-Rahman. However, he felt that the name change
was poorly received in basketball circles, believing that it cost him
opportunities, both during and after his playing career. Therefore, although he
remained devout in his Muslim faith, he chose to return to using the name Walt
Hazzard professionally.

Hazzard and his wife, Jaleesa, had four children: Yakub, Jalal, Rasheed, and
Khalil, the last being a record producer, well known in hip-hop circles by the
stage name DJ Khalil.

On March 22, 1996, Hazzard was hospitalized following a stroke. Although he had
made a substantive recovery over the ensuing years, he became much less
publicly active.

Before the stroke he worked as primary West Coast advance NBA scout for the Los
Angeles Lakers. He later was a special consultant with the Lakers.

On November 18, 2011, Hazzard died at the UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center due
to complications following heart surgery.

Hikmat, Mohammad Ghani
1929-2011
Iraqi sculptor and artist.

Born in the Kadumiya neighborhood of Baghdad, Mohammad Ghani Hikmat graduated
from Iraq's Fine Arts Institute in 1953 and from the Academy of Fine Arts in
Rome four years later.He became a
member of the Baghdad Group of Modern Art in 1953 and Al-Zawiya Group in
1967.He designed many monuments in Baghdad
and Iraq such as the triumphal sword arch and the statue of Scheherazade and
King Shahryar in Abu Nuwas street, Baghdad.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Hikmat created many sculptures that were inspired by
the Middle Eastern fables "1,001 Nights."Placed in bustling parts of the city, they
include "Kahramana," a sculpture of a woman pouring oil on thieves
hiding in jars, and statues of the two main characters of "1,001
Nights," King Shahryar and Queen Scheherazade.Other sculptures and wood carvings of his
depicted idealized scenes of everyday Iraqi life.

Hikmat also had a role in creating one Baghdad's most famous sculptures, the
crossed sword arches that became a symbol of the Hussein dictatorship.Saddam Hussein had ordered the arches built
as a symbol of Iraq's might during its war with Iran.After Khalid al-Rahal, who designed the
arches, died in 1987, Hikmat completed them.When the arches were completed in 1989, Saddam Hussein triumphantly rode
a horse through them.

The post-Saddam Iraqi government began to dismantle the arches in 2007 but
stopped after protests.Subsequently,
the Iraqi government began restoring the arches in 2011, citing their
importance as part of Iraqi history.

Hikmat fled Iraq a month before the United States led invasion in 2003 and
returned shortly after the regime of Saddam Hussein fell.Upon his return, he found that looters had
stolen about 150 of his works from the National Museum and that his studio and
many of his sculptures there had been damaged.He was devastated by the loss.

In the wake of the American occupation, Hikmat left Iraq for seven years but
remained in the Middle East and formed a committee to buy back many of Iraq's
artworks stolen in the looting.The
committee recovered about 100 pieces of art.

Hikmat returned to live in Baghdad in 2010.

Mohammad Ghani Hikmat died of kidney failure in Amman, Jordan on September 12,
2011.He was survived by his wife, Gaya
al-Rahal, a son, Yasir Mohammad, and a daughter, Hajeer Mohammad Ghani.

Hirsi Ali, Ayaan
1969-
Somalia born writer and politician.

Hirsi Ali was born on November 13, 1969 in Mogadishu, Somalia, into the
Majeerteen sub-clan of the Darod clan.Her first name, Ayaan, means "lucky person" or
"luck" in the Somali language.Her father, Hirsi Magan Isse, was a prominent member of the Somali
Salvation Democratic Fron and a leading figure in the Somalian Revolution.Although her father, who had studied abroad,
was opposed to the Somali tradition of female genital cutting, Ayaan's
grandmother had the procedure performed on five year old Hirsi Ali while her
father was away.

When she was six, Ayaan's family left the country for Saudi Arabia, later
moving to Ethiopia and then to Kenya, where the family obtained political
asylum.In Kenya, Ayaan attended the
English language Muslim Girls' Secondary School in Nairobi under sponsorship of
the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR).Following the invasion by the secular nation
of Iraq of the Islamic republic of Iran, Ayaan sympathized with Iran and the
Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, and wore a hijab together with her school
uniform.Following secondary school, she
attended a secretarial course at Valley Secretarial College in Nairobi (near
Yaya Centre) for one year.

Hirsi Ali arrived in the Netherlands in 1992.There is considerable lack of clarity about the events leading up to her
arrival, because she has since admitted to making false statements in her
application for asylum.Hirsi Ali
maintains that in 1992 her father arranged for her to marry a distant cousin
living in Canada.Her family has denied
this, however.It is not disputed that
in 1992 she traveled from Kenya to visit family in Dusseldorf and Berlin,
Germany.Others have put the story of
her forced marriage in doubt.After a
brief stay in Germany, she decided to go to the Netherlands instead of Canada.

Once in the Netherlands, Hirsi Ali requested political asylum and received a
residence permit.After receiving
asylum, Hirsi Ali held various short-term jobs, ranging from cleaning to mail
sorting.During this time, she took
courses in Dutch and a one-year course in Social Work.Following her initial studies, she studied
political science at the University of Leiden until 2000.Between 1995 and 2001, she also worked as an independent
interpreter and translator speaking for Somali women in asylum centers, hostels
for battered women, and the National Migration Service.Through these activities, she saw first hand
the way certain practices she thought she had left behind in Africa continued
in the West.While working for the
National Migration Services, she saw inside the workings of the Dutch
immigration system, and became severely critical of the way it handled asylum
seekers.

After earning a master's degree in political science, Hirsi Ali became a fellow
at the Wiardi Beckman Foundation, a scientific institute linked to the social
democratic party PvdA, of which Leiden University Professor Ruud Koole was
steward.Inspired by The Atheist
Manifesto (Atheistisch Manifest) of Leiden philosopher Herman Philipse, she
renounced Islam and became an atheist in 2002.During this period, she began to formulate her critique of Islamic
culture, published many news articles, and became a frequent speaker on
television news programs and public debate forums, and she then wrote up her
ideas in a book entitled De Zoontjesfabriek (The Son Factory).It was at this time that she first began to
receive death threats.

In November 2002, after some disagreements with the PvdA about her security
measures, she sought advice from Cisca Dresselhuys, the editor of the feminist
magazine Opzij.Dresselhuis introduced
Hirsi Ali to Gerrit Zalm, the parliamentary leader of the conservative Liberal
party (VVD) and party member Neelie-Smit Kroes, European Commissioner for
Competition.Hirsi Ali agreed to switch
to the VVD and stood for election to parliament.Between November 2002 and January 2003, Hirsi
Ali lived abroad and was put on the payroll as an assistant of the VVD
parliamentary party.From January 2003
to June 2006, Hirsi Ali worked as a shortlisted member of parliament for the
party.She was forced to step down as
an member of parliament when Verdonk (also VVD) announced that her Dutch
nationality had to be considered invalid, because she had admitted in a
television interview that it had been acquired using a false name and a false
date of birth.

Because of her statements about the Islamic prophet Muhammad in an interview, a
discrimination complaint was filed against her on April 24, 2003.The Prosecutor's office decided not to
initiate a case.

Hirsi Ali wrote the script and provided the voice over for Submission, a film
directed by Theo van Gogh, which criticized the treatment of women in Islamic
society.Juxtaposed with passages from
the Qur'an were images of Muslim women who had been abused by men.One woman was provocatively dressed in a
semi-transparent burqah, under which texts from the Qur'an were projected on
her skin.The texts referred to the
subordinate role of women.Other women
in the film showed signs of physical abuse.The film's release sparked much controversy, and became violent when
radical Islamist Mohammed Bouyeri, a member of the Hofstad Group, murdered Van
Gogh in an Amsterdam street on November 2, 2004.A letter attached to Van Gogh's body with a knife
was primarily a death threat to Hirsi Ali.After this incident, the Dutch secret service raised the level of
security that they provided to her.Hirsi Ali said that although she deeply regretted the murder of Van
Gogh, she was proud of the film and did not regret having made it.

Earlier that year, the group The Hague Connection produced a rap son,
"Hirsi Ali Dis," and distributed it on the Internet.The lyrics included violent threats against
her life.The rappers were prosecuted
under Article 121 of the Dutch criminal code, because they hindered the
execution of her tasks as politician.In
2005, they were sentenced to community service and a suspended prison sentence.

After the murder of Theo Van Gogh, Hirsi Ali went into hiding in the
Netherlands, and even spent some time in New York, until January 18, 2005, when
she returned to parliament.On February
18, 2005, she revealed the location of herself and her colleague Geert Wilders,
who had also been in hiding.She
demanded a normal, secured house, which she was granted one week later.On November 16, 2005, she reported being
seriously threatened by Sachemic Faa.This imam, who worked in a mosque in The Hague, announced on the
Internet that Hirsi Ali would be "blown away by the wind of changing
times" and that she should anticipate "the curse of Allah."

In January 2006, Hirsi Ali used her acceptance speech for the Reader's Digest
"European of the Year" award to urge action to prevent Iran from
developing nuclear weapons and to say that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must be taken at
his word in wanting to organize a conference to investigate objective evidence
of the Holocaust.

In March 2006, Hirsi Ali co-signed a letter entitled "MANIFESTO: Together
facing the new totalitarianism."The most notable of the eleven other signatories was British writer
Salman Rushdie, whose fatwa Hirsi Ali had supported as a teen.The letter was published in response to
violent and deadly protests in the Islamic world surrounding the
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

On April 27, 2006, a Dutch judge ruled that Hirsi Ali had to abandon her house
-- a highly secured secret address in the Netherlands.Her neighbors had complained that living
next to her was an unacceptable security risk to them, although the police had
testified in court that it was one of the safest places in the country due to
the many police personnel that had been assigned there.In early 2007, Hirsi Ali stated that the
Dutch state spent about 3.5 million euros providing armed guards for her, and
the threats made her live "in fear and looking over my shoulder," but
she was willing to endure this for the sake of speaking her mind.

In May 2006, the television program Zembla reported that Hirsi Ali had given
false information about her real name, her age and the country she arrived from
when originally applying for asylum.The
program also presented evidence that she was untruthful about the main reason
for her asylum application being forced marriage.Hirsi Ali admitted that she had lied about
her full name, her date of birth and the manner in which she had come to the
Netherlands.However, several sources,
includieng her first book The Son Factory, which had been published in 2002,
stated her real name and date of birth, and she had also publicly stated these
in a September 2002 interview published in the political magazine HP/De Tijd,
and in an interview in the VARA gids (2002).Accordingly, these details were considered by many to be public
knowledge.Furthermore, Hirsi Ali has
asserted that she made full disclosure of the matter to VVD officials when she
was invited to run for parliament in 2002.

Media speculation arose that Hirsi Ali could lose her Dutch citizenship because
of this "identity fraud," rendering her ineligible for
parliament.At first, the government
refused to investigate the matter, but later, at the urging of some
politicians, an investigation did occur.The findings of the investigation were that Hirsi Ali had not
legitimately received Dutch citizenship, because she had lied about her name
and date of birth.

On May 15, 2006, after the broadcast of the Zembla documentary, news stories
erupted saying that Hirsi Ali was likely to move to the United States in
September, and was expected to write a book entitled Shortcut to Enlightenment
and work for a conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute.

On May 16, 2006, Hirsi Ali resigned from Parliament after admitting that she
had lied on her asylum application.On
that day, she gave a press conference in which she restated that, although she
felt it was wrong to be granted asylum under false pretences, the facts had
been publicly known since 2002 when they had been reported in the media and in
one of her publications.In the press
conference, she also restated that she had spoken the truth about the reason
for seeking asylum, which had been the threat of forced marriage, despite a
claim to the contrary by some of her relatives.Her stated reason for resigning immediately was not the continuous
threats, which had made her job as a parliamentarian "difficult" but
"not impossible," but rather the news that the Minister would strip
her of her Dutch citizenship.

After a long and emotional debate in the Dutch Parliament, all major parties
supported a motion, requesting the Minister to explore the possibility of
special circumstances in Hirsi Ali's case.Although Verdonk remained convinced that the applicable law did not
leave her any room to consider such circumstances, she decided to accept the
motion.During the debate, she
astonished the members of Parliament by claiming that Hirsi Ali still had Dutch
citizenship during the period or re-examination.Apparently, the "decision" she made
public had been merely a report of the current position of the Dutch
government.Hirsi Ali, at that point,
had six weeks to react to the report before any final decision about her
citizenship was taken.Verdonk was
heavily criticized for not acting more prudently in a case that had so many
political implications.

Apart from a Dutch passport, Hirsi Ali would still retain a Dutch residency
permit (similar to a Permanent Resident Card) on the grounds that she was a
political refugee.According to the
Minister, this permit could not be taken away from her since it was granted in 1992.

On May 23, 2006, Hirsi Ali made available some letters she believed would
provide insight into her 1992 asylum application.In one letter, her sister, Haweya, warned her
that the entire extended family was searching for her (after she had fled to the
Netherlands), and in another letter her father denounced her.

On June 27, 2006, the Dutch government announced that Hirsi Ali would keep her
Dutch citizenship.On the same day, a
letter was disclosed in which Hirsi Ali expressed regret that she had
misinformed Minister Verdonk.Apparently
Hirsi Ali was allowed after all to carry that name because the Dutch government
believed that Somalis were allowed to carry the name of their grandfather, and
Hirsi Ali's grandfather had used the last name Ali until his thirties and only
then switched to Magan.

Later that same day, Hirsi Ali, through her lawyer in the television
interviews, made a statement declaring that she had signed the letter that was
drafted by the Justice Department under duress.She felt she was pressured into signing the statement in exchange for
the passport, but that she agreed to do it, swallowing her pride, in order not
to complicate her pending visa application for the United States.Currently, Hirsi Ali still carries her Dutch
passport.

In a special parliamentary session on June 28, questions were raised concerning
the alleged coercion of the Hirsi Ali statement by minister Verdonk, the
dismissal by the minister of the false date of birth as a relevant issue, and
whether Somali law prevails over Dutch law.The ensuing political upheaval on June 29, 2006, ultimately led to the
ball fo the Second Balkenende cabinet.

Hirsi Ali subsequently took up a position at the American Enterprise Institute,
published her autobiography, Infidel, began work on another book, Shortcut to
Enlightenment, a philosophical fantasy about a visit by Muhammad to the New
York Public Library, in which he examines the ideas of various enlightenment
philosophers, compares them to the state of Islam in the early 21st century of
the Christian calendar, and then comes to a number of important conclusions.

Hoveyda, Fereydoun
1924-2006
Iranian ambassador to the United Nations.

Hoveyda was born in Damascus, Syria, on September 21, 1924, the younger son of
Habibollah Eynol-Molk Hoveyda, the then Iranian consul general to Syria, and
Afsar-ol-Molouk Fatmeh.He earned a
Ph.D. in international law and economics from the Sorbonne in Paris.In 1948, he participated in the drafting of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

From 1952 to 1966 Hoveyda worked in UNESCO's mass communications
department.In 1965, his brother, Amir
Abbas Hoveyda, became prime minister of Iran (and would serve in that capacity
for 13 years).The next year Fereydoun
Hoveyda became Iran's deputy foreign minister in charge of international
organizations.

During the reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Hoveyda served as Iran's
ambassador to the United Nations from 1971 to 1979, the year that Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini led the revolution that overthrew the shah and the year that
his brother was executed after Iran's Islamic revolution.A month after his brother's execution,
Hoveyda published a letter in the New York Times in which Hoveyda called his
brother's execution, murder, "because no other word can be used for the
king of mock justice he was subjected to in the dead of night in front of
masked 'judges.'"

After leaving the Iranian foreign service, Hoveyda became a senior fellow at
the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.

His books include "What Do the Arabs Want?" (1991), "The Broken
Crescent: The Threat of Militant Islamic Fundamentalism" (2002), and
"The Shah and the Ayatollah: Iranian Mythology and Islamic
Revolution" (2003).

Hoveyda was also a founding contributor of "Cahiers du Cinema," the
influential French film magazine.He
wrote the screenplay for Roberto Rosselini's 1959 film "India."

Although Hoveyda and his brother had served in the shah's government, Hoveyda
was not uncritical.In another book,
"The Fall of the Shah," he wrote that "corruption ran wild at
the heart of the royal family" and that "the example of the royal
family was a source of contamination which infected every level of
society."

Hoveyda died at his home in Clifton, Virginia.He was survived by his wife, Gisela, and two daughters, Mandana and
Roxana.

Husain, Maqbool Fida
1915-2011
Indian artist.

Maqbool Fida Husain (also spelled Hussain)(b. September 17, 1915, Pandharpur, Maharashtra state, India—d. June 9,
2011, London, England),His narrative
paintings, executed in a modified Cubist style, could be caustic and funny as
well as serious and sombre. His themes—usually treated in series—included
topics as diverse as Mohandas K. Gandhi, Mother Teresa, the Ramayana, the
Mahabharata, the British raj, and motifs of Indian urban and rural life. One of
the most celebrated and internationally recognized Indian artists of the 20th
century, he also received recognition as a printmaker, photographer, and
fimmaker.

Ibn Durayd
837-933
Arab philologist.

Ibn Durayd's full name was Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Azdī ibn
Durayd.He was born in 837 in Basra,
Iraq.He died on August 13, 933, in
Baghdad.

Ibn Durayd wrote a large Arabic dictionary, Jamharat al-lughah (“Collection of
Language”).Ibn Durayd traced his descent
to an Arab tribe of Oman, and in 871, to avoid the Zanj (black African) slave
rebellion, during which Basra was sacked, he moved to Oman. He stayed there
more than a decade. After returning to Basra and later living in Fārs
(southwestern Iran), Ibn Durayd settled in Baghdad in 920. He was given a
pension there by the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Muqtadir. The anthologist Abū al-Faraj
al-Iṣbahānī was his student at this time.

Ibn Durayd’s dictionary was written in Fārs and was inspired in part by the
earlier dictionary Kitāb al-ʿayn of the grammarian al-Khalīl. Words are listed
alphabetically in Jamharat al-lughah, but all permutations of the root letters
are given together. Among Ibn Durayd’s other works are Kitāb al-ishtiqāq (“Book
of Derivation”), on the etymology of Arab names, and al-Malāḥin (“Ambiguities
of Speech”), a book of ambivalent words for the use of persons forced to swear.
Ibn Durayd was also a gifted poet.

Ibrahim Nasir
1926-2008
Prime Minister of the Maldives under Sultan Muhammad Fareed Didi from 1957 to
1968 who succeeded Sultan Didi to become the first President of the Second
Republic from 1968 to 1978.

Ibrahim Nasir was born on September 2, 1926, to Ahmad Didi of the infamous
Velaanaage family and Nayaage Aishath Didi.Nasir is descended from the famous Huraa and Dhiyamigili royal dynasties
of the Maldives.Nasir's mother, Aishath
Didi, was the daughter of Moosa Didi, son of Dhadimagu Ganduvaru Maryam Didi,
daughter of Husain Didi, son of Al-Nabeel Karayye Hassan Didi, son of Prince
Ibrahim Faamuladheyri Kilegefan, son of Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar II, son of
Sultan Muhammad Imaduddin II of the Dhiyamigili dynasty.

Ibrahim Nasir studied at the then Madharasatu Saniyya in Male', which later
became Majeediyya School in 1969.After
studying in Male' he also spent time studying in Sri Lanka.Ibrahim Nasir served as the Prime Minister
under the rule of Muhammad Fareed Didi from December 12, 1957 until the former
was sworn in as the first President of the second republic of Maldives.

Ibrahim Nasir was sworn into the office as the first president of the Republic
of the Maldives on November 11, 1968.He
was widely credited witn modernizing the long-isolated and nearly unknown
Maldives and opening them up to the rest of the world.His foremost work included that of bringing
the Maldives to the United Nations even with the opposition of some nations
that felt awkward at including a nation of such a small size.He laid the foundations of the nation by
modernizing the fisheries industry with mechanized vessels and starting the
tourism industry.

Ibrahim Nasir was also credited with many other improvements such as
introducing an English-based modern curriculum to government-run schools.He brought television and radio to the
country with formation of Television Maldives and Radio Maldives for
broadcasting radio signals nationwide.Nasir abolished Vaaru, a tax on the people living on islands outside
Male', as well as many other taxes on various imports to the country, some of
which have been since re-instated.He
brought about the independence of the Maldives from being a protectorate of the
British Empire.Before his resignation,
he proposed to the Parliament a motion that no one could be elected as
President for more than two terms.However, the motion was rejected.

Ibrahim Nasir also constructed the first international airport in the Maldives
(Male International Airport).

During his career, Nasir was criticized for his authoritarian methods and
repression of political activity.Most
notably, he was criticized for his iron-fisted methods in handling an
insurrection by the people of Thinadhoo, Addu and Huvadu Atolls, who formed a
breakaway government -- United Suvadives Republic -- with closer ties to the
British, for a brief period of time.

Nasir was succeeded by President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom who was then Minister of
Transport and former permanent representative of the Maldives to the United
States.The former president went into
exile in Singapore on December 7, 1978 after resigning from his post.In 1981, Gayoom sentenced him to jail in
absentia for alleged corruption charges and plotting a coup d'etat.None of the allegations were proven and Nasir
was pardoned.

Nasir married three times and have five children.His first wife was Aisha Zubair (Tuttudon
Goma), whom he married in 1950.They had
a son named Ahmad Nasir.In 1953, he
married Mariyam Saeed Didi with whom he had two sons, Ali Nasir and Muhammad
Nasir.In 1969, Nasir married Naseema
Muhammad Kaleyfan, with whom he had a son and daughter, Ismail Nasir and
Aishath Nasir, respectively.

On November 22, 2008, at the age of 82, Nasir died at Mount Elizabeth Hospital
in Singapore.He left behind three
children, Ahmad Nasir, Ismail Nasir and Aishath Nasir.His other two sons, Ali Nasir and Muhammad
Nasir, had predeceased their father by several years.

Ibrahim Sarim Pasha
1801-1853
An Ottoman statesman.

Ibrahim Sarim Pasha (1801-1853) was Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from
April 29, 1848 until August 12, 1848.

Inan, Ayse Afet
1908-1985
Turkish historian and sociologist.

Ayşe Afet İnan (30 October 1908 – June 8, 1985) was one of the adopted
daughters of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Afet İnan was born in 1908 in Selanik, then in the Ottoman Empire. She
graduated from the Bursa Teachers College for Girls in 1925, and started to
work as a primary school teacher in İzmir. She met Mustafa Kemal Atatürk the
same year in October during his visit to İzmir.

Afet was sent in 1925 by Atatürk to Lausanne, Switzerland, to learn French.
After returning to Turkey in 1927, she attended the French "Notre Dame de
Sion High School for Girls" in İstanbul. Finishing the school, she was
appointed as a secondary school teacher for history. In 1935, Afet İnan went to
Switzerland again to study history at the University of Geneva. After
graduating, she obtained a PhD degree in sociology in 1939. In 1950, she became
a professor at the University of Ankara.

She was the co-founder and a leading member of the Turkish Historical Society.

İnan died on June 8, 1985 in Ankara, leaving behind her husband Dr. Rıfat İnan,
her daughter Arı and her son Demir.

The "Afet İnan Historical Studies Award" is given biennially by the
Turkish History Foundation in cooperation with İnan's family.

Jaber III
1926-2006
Thirteenth emir of Kuwait (r. 1977-2006).

Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah was born in Kuwait City on June 29, 1926.Jaber (of the al-Sabah dynasty) was the third
son of Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, who served as Kuwait's emir from 1921 to 1950.Jaber received his early education at
Al-Mubarakiya School, Al-Ahmediya School, and Al-Sharqiya School, and was
subsequently tutored privately in religion, English, Arabic, and the
sciences.In 1949, Jaber served as
Director of Public Service for the Ahmadi region.In 1962, he was appointed as Kuwait's first
Minister of Finance and Economy.Under
Jaber, the country's oil revenues transformed it from a largely tribal society
to a modern, urbanized state with one of the world's largest per capita
incomes.He introduced Kuwait's first
currency, the Kuwaiti Dinar (K. D.).Jaber was appointed Prime Minister of Kuwait in 1965, and subsequently
named Crown Prince in 1966.He succeeded
his cousin Sabah III al-Salim al-Sabah in December 1977, and had been Prime
Minister of Kuwait for a decade before.

In 1981, Jaber dissolved the National Assembly of Kuwait, exercising his powers
as foreseen in Kuwait's Constitution.In
May 1985, he survived an assassination attempt when unknown assailants drove a
car bomb into his procession.In 1991,
after the Gulf War, Jaber reinstated the National Assembly.

On August 3, after much discussion of a border dispute between Kuwait and Iraq,
Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait, with the stated intent of annexing it.Jaber escaped to Saudi Arabia, where he set
up a government in exile.In March 1991,
Jaber returned to a liberated Kuwait.

In 1999, Jaber proposed an amendment to Kuwait's Election Law, allowing women
to vote and hold office.The bill was
rejected by the National Assembly, however, and was not re-introduced for the
members of parliament until 2005, when Kuwait's parliament had finally granted
Kuwait's women political rights.

Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah is credited with his involvement in the creation of the
Gulf Cooperation Council, the creation of the Future Generations Funds, and
assistance in the unification of North and South Yemen.

Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah died on January 15, 2006.He was succeeded by the Crown Prince Saad
al-Abdullah al-Salim al-Sabah.The
government announced a 40 day period of mourning.

Jaber was known to have married at least nine times, and had thirty-nine
children.

Jermaine LaJaune Jackson was born on December 11, 1954.Born to parents Joseph and Katherine Jackson
in Gary, Indiana, Jermaine became the original lead singer of the Jackson
Brothers and of an earlier incarnation of The Jackson Five until 1967 when
younger brother Michael assisted with lead vocals, but would co-lead with
Michael for many years. Jermaine graduated from Birmingham High School in 1973,
where the yearbook shows he was elected "most talented" and
"best dressed".

Growing up as a Jehovah's Witness, he embraced Islam in 1989 after a trip to
Bahrain and took the name Muhammad Abdul-Aziz. Jermaine has publicly expressed
his religious belief especially after being a part of Big Brother UK, where he
prayed and fasted in the house.

Jermaine married Hazel Gordy (daughter of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy)
in 1973. Their first child, Jermaine Jr. (often called Jay), was born in 1977.
Their daughter Autumn was born the following year.

After Jermaine's divorce from Hazel was finalized in 1987, Margaret Maldonado
and Jermaine spent eight years together. The couple had two children: Jeremy
Maldonado Jackson (b. 1986) and Jourdynn Michael Jackson (b. 1989).

Shortly after separating from Maldonado in 1995, Jermaine married Alejandra
Genevieve Oaziaza.The couple had sons
Jaffar (b. 1996) and Jermajesty (b. 2000). Jermaine filed for divorce in
November 2004, which was finalized in May 2008.

He married his fourth wife, Halima Rashid. They lived in Los Angeles, but traveled
frequently to London and Bahrain. Jermaine has 6 children: 2 with Gordy, 2 with
Maldonado and 2 with Genevieve. During his brother Michael Jackson's 2005
child-abuse trial, he was a staunch supporter of his brother, coming to
Michael's defense on CNN's Larry King Live and appearing with him in court on
numerous occasions.

Jermaine and his brothers signed with Motown Records in 1969. As the co-lead
singer of The Jackson 5 after his brother Michael, Jermaine sang notable parts
of "I Want You Back", "I'll Be There", "I Am
Love", "Dancing Machine" and many other Jackson 5 songs. In
1975, after fourteen years performing with his brothers, Jermaine split from
the Jackson 5 to continue his solo career at Motown Records while the other
Jackson brothers left to sign with Epic Records. During the Jackson 5's last
years in Motown, Jermaine didn't partake in lead vocals at all on songs such as
"Hum Along and Dance", and only had a small co-lead part in the
group's 1974 hit "Dancing Machine".

Like Michael, Jermaine also began a successful solo career concurrent to his
tenure in The Jackson 5, and had a hit with the 1972 Shep and the Limelites
cover "Daddy's Home". When The Jackson 5 left Motown, Jermaine left
the group and stayed at Motown, as he was married to Hazel Gordy, the daughter
of Motown founder Berry Gordy.

Jackson was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal
Performance for his 1980 album Let's Get Serious. He had numerous Hot 100 Top
20 hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including "Daddy's Home"
(#9), "That's How Love Goes", "Let's Be Young Tonight",
"Bass Odyssey", "Feel the Fire", "Let Me Tickle Your
Fancy" (featuring Devo on backing vocals) (#18), "Let's Get
Serious" (#9, also only one of two of his UK hits, peaking at #8),
"Dynamite" (#15), "Do What You Do" (#13), and "I Think
It's Love" (#16). A duet with his brother Michael, "Tell Me I'm Not
Dreamin' (Too Good to Be True)", hit #1 on the dance chart in 1984. He and
Michael also collaborated with Rockwell, both providing guest vocals on his
1984 hit single, "Somebody's Watching Me". In 1985, his duet with Pia
Zadora, "When the Rain Begins to Fall", topped several singles charts
in Europe. His final chart success, 1989's "Don't Take It Personal",
hit #1 on the Billboard R&B singles chart.

In 1991 a pre-commercial release version of his song "Word to the
Badd!!" (from the L.A. & Babyface-produced album You Said,) was
released to radio stations. In that version he criticized his brother Michael.
During this time, Michael confronted Jermaine and the two brothers discussed
the issue, with Michael asking for the song to be withdrawn from airplay.
Jermaine refused and was criticized for his insult to Michael. The lyrics were
reworked for final release, making the song instead about a former lover.
Several other singles were released from this album, which was the second album
to appear on the newly-formed LaFace Records label, including "You Said,
You Said," and "I Dream, I Dream." However, the album turned out
to be a commercial failure because of public backlash over his cynical attack
on Michael, and Jermaine was soon dropped from his record label. Jermaine
remains unsigned to any label.

Jermaine is proficient on the electric guitar and various types of bass
guitars.

In 1992, he produced The Jacksons: An American Dream, an award-winning and
highly-rated miniseries about the history of The Jackson 5. Jermaine Jr.
portrayed his father as a young teenager in the miniseries.

Jackson was the first housemate to enter the Celebrity Big Brother UK house in
2007. He steered clear of the controversy caused by the series, avoiding
confrontation and offering moral support to fellow housemate Shilpa Shetty
against bullying from fellow housemates Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd, and Jo
O'Meara. During a task in the Big Brother house, the housemates had to create a
tribute band for The Jackson 5. The performance of "I Want You Back"
helped put The Jackson 5 back in the UK charts at #53. On January 28, 2007,
Jackson came in second place to Shilpa Shetty in the Big Brother finale. The
final three consisted of Dirk Benedict, Jermaine Jackson, and Shilpa Shetty,
the winner. After leaving Big Brother, Jackson did several interviews on UK
television, stating why and how he took his peaceful and mediating stance in the
Big Brother house. He also spoke about the Jackson 5 reuniting for a
performance. Jackson denied he was a racist after calling Jackiey Budden
"white trash" and said he was not declaring that that was what she
was, but rather explaining to Shilpa how others might describe Jackiey.

Jackson was part of the second season of the CMT reality show Gone Country.

Jackson returned to the United Kingdom in March 2007 to take part in the
Channel 4 show Musicool as a mentor.

He was also involved in several charity projects and worked on projects to help
orphaned children around the world. Among other countries, he visited
Bangladesh as part of his work to raise funds and help children.Jackson also figured heavily on the Islam
Channel in the United Kingdom where he talked about his Islamic faith and
announced several charity projects that he planned to undertake.

In April 2007, Jackson returned to the United Kingdom to take part in a one-off
special of ITV's Challenge Anneka. On the same trip he appeared in Glasgow with
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, speaking in support of Searchlight
magazine's anti-racism campaign, the Daily Mirror "Hope Not Hate
bus".

On November 23, 2007, Jackson appeared on Katie & Peter: Unleashed and
again talked of a reunion with his brothers on a tour the following year.

In 2008, Jackson flew to Australia to be a guest judge and mentor for the top 5
Michael Jackson night on Australian Idol.

In March 2008, Jackson was the guest of honor at the Muslim Writers Awards in
Birmingham, where he was interviewed live on stage by chat show host Sajid
Varda.

O'Shea "Ice Cube" Jackson was born on June 15, 1969 in South Central
Los Angeles, California, the son of Doris Jackson (née Benjamin), a hospital
clerk and custodian, and Hosea Jackson, who worked as a groundskeeper at
UCLA.At the age of sixteen, Jackson
developed an interest in hip hop music, and began writing raps in Taft High
School's keyboarding class. He attended the Phoenix Institute of Technology in
the fall of 1987, and studied Architectural Drafting. With his friend Sir Jinx,
Jackson formed the C.I.A. (Cru' in Action!), and they performed at parties
hosted by Dr. Dre.

In 1987, Jackson and Dr. Dre released the single My Posse, under the alias CIA.
After the collaboration, Jackson showed Eazy-E the lyrics to
"Boyz-n-the-Hood". Eazy-E, although initially rejecting the lyrics,
eventually recorded the song for N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitude) and the Posse,
the debut album for the group N.W.A that included Jackson, Easy-D, Dre, and
other rappers MC Ren and DJ Yella.

By this point, Jackson was a full-time member of N.W.A along with Dr. Dre and
MC Ren. Jackson wrote Dr. Dre and Eazy-E's rhymes for the group's landmark
album, Straight Outta Compton, released in 1988. However, as 1990 approached,
Jackson found himself at odds with the group's manager, Jerry Heller, after
Heller responded to the group's financial questions by drafting up a new
agreement.

Since Jackson wrote the lyrics to approximately half of both Straight Outta
Compton, and Eazy-E's solo album, Eazy-Duz-It, he was advised of the amounts he
was truly owed by Heller, and proceeded to take legal action, soon after
leaving the group and the label. In response, the remaining N.W.A members
attacked him on the EP 100 Miles and Runnin', as well as their next and final
album, Efil4zaggin (Niggaz4life spelled backwards).

In late 1989, Jackson recorded his debut solo album in Los Angeles with the
Bomb Squad (Public Enemy's production team). AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted was
released in May 1990 and was an instant hit, riding and contributing to the
rising tide of rap's popularity in mainstream society. The album was charged
with controversy, and he was accused of misogyny, and racism. Subsequently,
Jackson appointed the female rapper Yo-Yo (who appeared on AmeriKKKa's Most
Wanted) to the head of his own record label and helped produce her debut album,
Make Way for the Motherlode. This was followed by a critically acclaimed role
as 'Doughboy' in John Singleton's hood-based drama, Boyz n the Hood. In the
same year as AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, Jackson released the acclaimed EP, Kill
At Will which sold well, becoming the first hip hop EP to go both Gold and
Platinum.

Jackson's 1991 follow-up, Death Certificate was regarded as more focused, yet
even more controversial, and critics accused him again of being anti-white,
misogynist, and anti-semitic. The album is thematically divided into the 'Death
Side' ("a vision of where we are today") and the 'Life Side' ("a
vision of where we need to go"). It features "No Vaseline", a
scathing response to N.W.A's attacks and "Black Korea," a track
regarded by some as prophetic of the Los Angeles riots, but was also
interpreted as racist by many. Jackson toured with Lollapalooza in 1992, which
widened his fan base.

Jackson released The Predator in November 1992, which was recorded amidst the
Los Angeles riots of 1992. Referring specifically to the riots, in the first
single, "Wicked", he rapped "April 29 was power to the people
and we might just see a sequel". The Predator debuted at number one on
both the pop and R&B charts, the first album in history to do so. Singles
from The Predator included "It Was a Good Day" and the "Check Yo
Self" remix, and the songs had a two part music video. The album was
Jackson's most successful release, with over three million copies sold in the
United States. However, after The Predator, Ice Cube's rap audience slowly
began to diminish. Lethal Injection which was released at the end of 1993 and
represented Jackson's first attempt at imitating the G-Funk sound of Dr. Dre's
The Chronic, was not well received by critics. He had more successful hits from
Lethal Injection, including "Really Doe", "Bop Gun (One
Nation)", "You Know How We Do It" and "What Can I
Do?". After 1994, Jackson took a hiatus from music and concentrated on
film work and developing the careers of other rap musicians, Mack 10, Mr. Short
Khop, Kausion, and Da Lench Mob.

In 1995, Jackson reunited with former N.W.A member Dr. Dre, who was then part
of Death Row Records, in their duet "Natural Born Killaz". In 1998,
he released his long-awaited solo album, War & Peace Volume 1. The delayed
second part, War & Peace Volume 2, was released in 2000. The albums
featured appearances from Westside Connection as well as a reunion with fellow
N.W.A members, Dr. Dre and MC Ren, though many fans maintained that the two
albums were not on par with his past work, especially the second volume. In
2000, Jackson also joined Dr. Dre, Eminem & Snoop Dogg on the Up In Smoke
Tour.

In 2006, Jackson released his seventh solo album, Laugh Now, Cry Later, on his
Da Lench Mob Records label, debuting at number four on the Billboard Charts and
selling 144,000 units in the first week. The album featured production from Lil
Jon and Scott Storch, who produced the lead single "Why We Thugs".

He released his eighth studio album, Raw Footage, on August 19, 2008. It
features the controversial single "Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It".

On Oct 12, 2009, Jackson released a non album track called 'Raider Nation' in
tribute to the Oakland Raiders' football team he supports.

On May 11, 2010, Jackson released a 30 for 30 documentary, Straight Outta L.A.,
for ESPN on the relationship between the gangster rap scene in Los Angeles and
the tenure of the Raiders football team there.

In 1996, Jackson formed Westside Connection with Mack 10 and WC, and together
they released an album called Bow Down. Most of the album was used to engage in
the war of words between the East and West Coasts of the 90s. The album's
eponymous single reached number twenty-one on the singles charts, and the album
itself was certified Platinum by the end of 1996. With Bow Down, Westside
Connection brought their own agenda to the hip hop scene. Ice Cube, Mack 10,
and WC had grown tired of being overlooked by most East Coast media outlets.
The album was designed to instill a sense of pride in West Coast rap fans and
to start a larger movement that anyone who felt underappreciated might identify
with. Songs like "Bow Down" and "Gangstas Make the World Go
'Round" make reference to this. Jackson would also eventually make amends
with Eazy-E shortly before the latter's death in 1995. After a seven-year hiatus,
Westside Connection returned with their second effort Terrorist Threats in
2003. The album fared well critically, but its commercial reception was less
than that of Bow Down. "Gangsta Nation" was the only single released
from the album, which was produced by Fredwreck and featured Nate Dogg."Gangsta Nation" was a radio hit.
After a rift occurred between Jackson and Mack 10 about Jackson's commitments
to film work rather than touring with the group, Westside Connection disbanded.
WC, however, remained friends with Jackson and released a new solo album on
Lench Mob Records entitled Guilty by Affiliation on August 14, 2007.

In 1992, while taking a break from his own recording efforts, Jackson assisted
on the debut albums from Da Lench Mob (Guerillas in tha Mist, 1992) and Kam
(Neva Again, 1993), both of which enjoyed critical acclaim and some moderate
commercial success. Jackson handled most of the production on Guerillas in tha
Mist.

In 1993, Lench Mob member, J-Dee, was sentenced to life imprisonment for
attempted murder, and Jackson did not produce their next album, Planet of tha
Apes. Around this time, in 1993, Jackson also worked with Tupac Shakur on his
album Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z., appearing on the track "Last Wordz"
with Ice-T. He also did a song with Dr. Dre for the first time since he left
N.W.A: "Natural Born Killaz", for the Murder Was The Case soundtrack,
and also contributed to the Office Space soundtrack. He was featured on Kool G
Rap's song "Two To The Head" from the Kool G Rap & DJ Polo album
"Live And Let Die". Jackson appeared on the song "Children of
the Korn" by the band Korn, and lent his voice to British DJ Paul
Oakenfold's solo debut album, Bunkka, on the track "Get Em Up".

Following his role as 'Doughboy' in Boyz n the Hood, in 1992, he starred
alongside Ice-T, and Bill Paxton in Walter Hill's action film, Trespass, and
then in The Glass Shield.

Jackson was offered to co-star with Janet Jackson in the 1993 film Poetic
Justice, but he refused because he claimed that he was not at a point in his
career where he would play in a romantic movie, so the role was given to Tupac
Shakur instead.

John Singleton encouraged Jackson to try his hand at screenwriting. With this
encouragement, Jackson wrote the screenplay for what became the 1995 comedy
Friday, in which he also starred, alongside then-up-and-coming comedian Chris
Tucker. Friday became a hit, earning $28 million worldwide on a $3.5 million
budget, and spawned two sequels, Next Friday and Friday After Next.

That year, Jackson also starred in his second collaboration with John
Singleton, Higher Learning, as world-weary university student,
"Fudge".

In 1997 Jackson starred in the action thriller Dangerous Ground as a South
African exiled from his country who escapes to America and returns fifteen
years later, he also had a supporting role in the film Anaconda that same year.
He wrote, executive produced, and made his directorial debut in The Players
Club in 1998, and in 1999, starred alongside George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg
in the critically acclaimed Three Kings. In 2000, he wrote and appeared in the
Friday sequel Next Friday. In 2002, Ice Cube starred in the commercially
successful movie Barbershop, as well as All About the Benjamins and the third
film in the Friday trilogy, Friday after Next (which he again wrote). In 2004,
he appeared in Barbershop 2: Back in Business, and Torque. In 2005, Jackson
starred in the action movie XXX: State of the Union, and the comedy Are We
There Yet?, co-starring Nia Long.

Ice Cube's Are We There Yet television series premiered on TBS on June 2, 2010.
Based on the 2005 feature film of the same name, the show revolves around a
family adjusting to the new addition of the matriarch's new husband, played by
Terry Crews, and trying to deal with normal family situations. On August 16,
2010, it was announced that Are We There Yet? had been renewed for 90
additional episodes.

In 2004, Ice Cube's hit singles "Check Yo Self", "It Was a Good
Day" and the affiliated song "Guerrillas in tha Mist" with Da
Lench Mob appeared on the popular video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on
fictional radio station Radio Los Santos.

In late 2005, Jackson and R. J. Cutler, teamed up to create the six-part
documentary series titled Black. White., which was broadcast on cable network
FX. Jackson's other movie projects include Teacher of the Year, released in
2007,[23] and The Extractors, released in 2008.

In October 2006, Ice Cube was honored at VH1's Annual Hip Hop Honors by Xzibit,
Lil Jon and WC from the Westside Connection, all performing some classic Ice
Cube tracks, and Ice Cube also performed "Why We Thugs" and "Go
To Church" from his latest album, Laugh Now, Cry Later, where the strong
N.Y.C crowd were greeted with Cube's vintage California sound.

After launching his new come-back album Laugh Now, Cry Later, Jackson began
touring across the world to promote the new album. The tour was known as the
"Straight Outta Compton Tour", and accompanying him along the way was
his friend and fellow rapper WC from the Westside Connection.

Jackson collaborated with Tech N9ne on the song "Blackboy" that
appears on Tech N9ne's July 2008 album Killer.

The eighth Ice Cube studio LP, titled Raw Footage, was released on August 19,
2008, and featured the singles Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It and Do Ya Thang.

Jackson appeared on a song by rapper The Game titled "State of
Emergency" off The Game's Album, L.A.X.

Jackson's ninth studio album I Am the West was released on September 28, 2010.
The album was released independently under his label Lench Mob.

Jackson married Kimberly Woodruff in 1992, with whom he had four children
(three boys, one girl).Jackson became a
Muslim, having converted sometime in the 1990s. He described his Muslim faith
as a simple, personal one that does not involve attending prayer services or
following rituals. Although he spoke favorably of the Nation of Islam, he
denied ever being in the organization.

Jamri, Abdul-Amir al-
1937-2006
Shiite cleric who led pro-democracy protests in Bahrain in the 1990s.

Jamri was born in 1937 in the village of Bani Jamra.The son of a teacher of Qur'an, he learned
his basic education from his father and state schools.

From 1962 to 1973, Jamri studied Islamic theology and law at Al-Najaf Religious
Institute.He authored several books which
included: Islamic Duties, Islamic Teachings, Women in Islam, Poetry among
others.

In 1973, Jamri was elected by the 14th regional constituency for the National
Assembly.As an active opposition
member, he lobbied vigorously against the imposition of the State Security Law
which was issued by the Amir (ruler) in October 1974.The constitution specifies sharing the
legislative power between the Amir and the National Assembly.Both branches of the legislature must
mutually agree on any bill before it can become a statutory law.The Amir disregarded this, dissolved the
elected parliament and suspended the important articles of the constitution in
August 1975.The State Security Law
empowered the Interior Minister to order the administrative detention of
opponents for up to three years renewable.Beginning in 1975, this law was utilized to suppress the opposition.

From 1975 to 1977, as a religious scholar and an active member of the Islamic
Enlightenment Society, Jamri was involved in many cultural, social, charitable
and educational activities for the promotion of religious teachings and social
justice.

In 1977, Jamri accepted an offer to join the Religious Court as a judge.The religious courts are a part of the
Ministry of Justice and were established in the 1920s for resolving cases
pertaining to personal affairs, such as marriages, divorces, inheritance and
other community religious affairs.The
courts are divided into two departments, one for the Shi'a community and one
for the Sunni community, being the two major Muslim sects of Bahrain.Jamri was a member of the Shi'a court.As a prominent figure in the society, his
domain of activities extended beyond the courts to include all cultural
activities, including peaceful opposition to the social injustices caused by
the banning of the parliament and the rough implantation of the State Security
Law.

In 1988, the Bahraini authorities decided to punish Jamri for his open
opposition.On May 14, 1988, the
security forces surrounded and searched around the Mosque where Jamri led the
daily prayers.This was considered as a
muscle show by the security forces.Although Bahrain Law did not allow the sacking of any judge, in July
1988 Jamri was suspended from duty.Then, in September both his son (Mohammed Jamil) and son-in-law (Abdul
Jalil Khalil Ebrahim) were arrested, severely tortured, charged with
anti-government activities and were respectively sentenced to ten and seven
years imprisonment.Jamri himself was arrested
on September 6, 1988, but was released after a few hours when people
demonstrated against the government action.The sentencing of both his son and son-in-law was a substitution for
Jamri punishment.

From 1988 to 1993, from his house and the neighborhood mosque, Jamri resorted
to his usual activities in addition to authoring books and forming educational
circles in the mosque.Jamri continued
campaigning against the government's unjust policies.Jamri largely orchestrated Shiite led
protests to press for the reinstatement of parliament and a fairer distribution
of economic resources.At least 38
people died during anti-government unrest between 1994 and 1999.

In the ensuing years, Jamri would be jailed twice for his political organizing,
first in 1996, when he was sentenced to three years in prison, then in July
1999, when he was convicted and sentenced to ten years.He never served that second term, however,
because he was pardoned the next day by King Hamad al-Khalifa, the emir's
successor, as part of a reconciliation effort that promised sweeping reforms,
including the election of a new Parliament.

Optimism over the initiative soon wore off, when the king imposed a
Constitution establishing a second, appointed legislative house, which
significantly curtailed the power of the elected one.Gerrymandering ensured a Sunni advantage in
the elected house as well.

Jamri dropped out of public life in 2002, when he suffered the first of many
strokes.Jamri died on December 18,
2006, shortly after a Shiite dominated parliamentary bloc won a majority of the
seats in Bahrain's Parliament last month, promising to change Bahrain's
politics.

Steve Jobs, in full Steven Paul Jobs (b. February 24, 1955, San Francisco,
California, United States — d. October 5, 2011, Palo Alto, California), was
born in San Francisco to University of Wisconsin graduate students Abdulfattah
"John" Jandali, a Syrian Muslim from the city of Homs and Joanne
Carole Schieble (later Simpson, via marriage), an American of German descent.
Jandali went on to become a political science professor who later developed a
career in the leisure industry and Schieble became a speech language
pathologist. Jobs was placed for adoption against Jandali's wishes, after
Schieble's father opposed their marriage. Schieble and Jandali married in
December 1955 four months after her father died and ten months after giving up
their baby boy. They divorced in 1962. Their daughter, Jobs's biological
sister, award-winning novelist and UCLA professor Mona Simpson was born in
1957. The siblings first met in 1984, and kept their relationship a secret
until 1986. As adults, they developed a close relationship, with Jobs regularly
visiting Simpson in Manhattan. When Jobs learned more about their birth parents
from Mona Simpson, he invited Joanne Simpson to some events.

Jobs was adopted by the family of Paul Jobs and Clara Jobs (née Hagopian) who
moved to Mountain View, California when he was five years old. Paul and Clara
later adopted a daughter, Patti. Paul Jobs, a machinist for a company that made
lasers, taught his son rudimentary electronics and how to work with his hands.
His adoptive mother was an accountant.

Jobs attended Cupertino Junior High and Homestead High School in Cupertino,
California. He frequented after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company
in Palo Alto, California, and was later hired there, working with Steve Wozniak
as a summer employee. Following high school graduation in 1972, Jobs enrolled
at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one
semester, he continued auditing classes at Reed, while sleeping on the floor in
friends' rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free
meals at the local Hare Krishna temple.

In 1974, Jobs took a job as a technician at Atari, Inc., a manufacturer of
video games, with the primary intent of saving money for a spiritual retreat to
India.

Jobs then traveled to India to visit Neem Karoli Baba at his Kainchi Ashram
with a Reed College friend (and, later, an early Apple employee), Daniel
Kottke, in search of spiritual enlightenment. He came back a Buddhist with his
head shaved and wearing traditional Indian clothing. During this time, Jobs
experimented with psychedelics, calling his LSD experiences one of the two or
three most important things he had done in his life. He later said that people
around him who did not share his counter-cultural roots could not fully relate
to his thinking.

Jobs returned to Atari and was given the task of creating a circuit board for
the game Breakout. According to Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari offered
$100 for each chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little interest
in or knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split
the bonus evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips.
Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a
design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line.

Jobs began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Wozniak in
1975. He greatly admired Edwin H. Land, the inventor of instant photography and
founder of Polaroid Corporation, and explicitly modeled his career after him.

When Wozniak told Jobs of his progress in designing his own computer logic
board, Jobs suggested that they go into business together, which they did after
Hewlett-Packard formally turned down Wozniak’s design in 1976. The Apple I, as
they called the logic board, was built in the Jobses’ family garage with money
they obtained by selling Jobs’s Volkswagen minibus and Wozniak’s programmable
calculator.

Jobs was one of the first entrepreneurs to understand that the personal
computer would appeal to a broad audience, at least if it did not appear to
belong in a junior high school science fair. With Jobs’s encouragement, Wozniak
designed an improved model, the Apple II, complete with a keyboard, and they
arranged to have a sleek, molded plastic case manufactured to enclose the unit.

Though Jobs had long, unkempt hair and eschewed business garb, he managed to
obtain financing, distribution, and publicity for the company, Apple Computer,
incorporated in 1977—the same year that the Apple II was completed. The machine
was an immediate success, becoming synonymous with the boom in personal
computers. In 1981 the company had a record-setting public stock offering and,
in 1983, made the quickest entrance (to that time) into the Fortune 500 list of
America’s top companies. In 1983 the company recruited PepsiCo, Inc., president
John Sculley to be its chief executive officer (CEO) and, implicitly, Jobs’s
mentor in the fine points of running a large corporation.

During that same period, Jobs was heading the most important project in the
company’s history. In 1979 he led a small group of Apple engineers to a
technology demonstration at the Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center
(PARC) to see how the graphical user interface could make computers easier to
use and more efficient. Soon afterward, Jobs left the engineering team that was
designing Lisa, a business computer, to head a smaller group building a
lower-cost computer. Both computers were redesigned to exploit and refine the
PARC ideas, but Jobs was explicit in favoring the Macintosh, or Mac, as the new
computer became known. Jobs coddled his engineers and referred to them as
artists, but his style was uncompromising. At one point he demanded a redesign
of an internal circuit board simply because he considered it unattractive. He
would later be renowned for his insistence that the Macintosh be not merely
great but “insanely great.” In January 1984 Jobs himself introduced the
Macintosh in a brilliantly choreographed demonstration that was the centerpiece
of an extraordinary publicity campaign. It would later be pointed to as the
archetype of “event marketing.”

However, the first Macs were underpowered and expensive, and they had few
software applications—all of which resulted in disappointing sales. Apple
steadily improved the machine, so that it eventually became the company’s
lifeblood as well as the model for all subsequent computer interfaces. But
Jobs’s apparent failure to correct the problem quickly led to tensions in the
company, and in 1985 Sculley convinced Apple’s board of directors to remove the
company’s famous co-founder.

Jobs quickly started another firm, the NeXT Corporation, designing powerful
workstation computers for the education market. His funding partners included
Texas entrepreneur Ross Perot and Canon Inc., a Japanese electronics company.
Although the Next computer was notable for its engineering design, it was
eclipsed by less costly computers from competitors such as Sun Microsystems,
Inc. As an alternative, in the early 1990s, Jobs focused the company on its
innovative software system, NextStep.

Meanwhile, in 1986 Jobs bought Pixar Animation Studios, a computer-graphics
firm founded by Hollywood movie director George Lucas. Over the following
decade Jobs built Pixar into a major animation studio that, among other
achievements, produced the first full-length feature film to be completely
computer-animated, Toy Story, in 1995. Also in 1995, Pixar’s public stock
offering made Jobs, for the first time, a billionaire.

In late 1996, Apple, saddled by huge financial losses and on the verge of
collapse, hired a new chief executive, semiconductor executive Gilbert Amelio.
When Amelio learned that the company, following intense and prolonged research
efforts, had failed to develop an acceptable replacement for the Macintosh’s
aging operating system (OS), he chose NextStep, buying Jobs’s company for more
than $400 million—and bringing Jobs back to Apple as a consultant. However,
Apple’s board of directors soon became disenchanted with Amelio’s inability to
turn the company’s finances around and in June 1997 requested Apple’s prodigal
co-founder to lead the company once again. Jobs quickly forged an alliance with
Apple’s erstwhile foe, the Microsoft Corporation, scrapped Amelio’s Mac-clone
agreements, and simplified the company’s product line. He also engineered an
award-winning advertising campaign that urged potential customers to “think
different” and buy Macintoshes. Just as important is what he did not do: he
resisted the temptation to make machines that ran Microsoft’s Windows OS; nor
did he, as some urged, spin off Apple as a software-only company. Jobs believed
that Apple, as the only major personal computer maker with its own operating
system, was in a unique position to innovate.

Innovate he did. In 1998, Jobs introduced the iMac, an egg-shaped, one-piece
computer that offered high-speed processing at a relatively modest price and
initiated a trend of high-fashion computers. (Subsequent models sported five
different bright colors.) By the end of the year, the iMac was the nation’s
highest-selling personal computer, and Jobs was able to announce consistent
profits for the once-moribund company. The following year, he triumphed once
more with the stylish iBook, a laptop computer built with students in mind, and
the G4, a desktop computer sufficiently powerful that (so Apple boasted) it
could not be exported under certain circumstances because it qualified as a
supercomputer. Though Apple did not regain the industry dominance it once had,
Steve Jobs had saved his company, and in the process re-established himself as
a master high-technology marketer and visionary.

In 2001, Jobs started reinventing Apple for the 21st century. That was the year
that Apple introduced iTunes, a computer program for playing music and for
converting music to the compact MP3 digital format commonly used in computers
and other digital devices. Later the same year, Apple began selling the iPod, a
portable MP3 player, which quickly became the market leader. In 2003 Apple
began selling downloadable copies of major record company songs in MP3 format
over the Internet. By 2006 more than one billion songs and videos had been sold
through Apple’s online iTunes Store. In recognition of the growing shift in the
company’s business, Jobs officially changed the name of the company to Apple
Inc. on January 9, 2007.

In 2007, Jobs took the company into the telecommunications business with the
introduction of the touch-screen iPhone, a mobile telephone with capabilities
for playing MP3s and videos and for accessing the Internet. Later that year,
Apple introduced the iPod Touch, a portable MP3 and gaming device that included
built-in Wi-Fi and an iPhone-like touch screen. Bolstered by the use of the
iTunes Store to sell Apple and third-party software, the iPhone and iPod Touch
soon boasted more games than any other portable gaming system. Jobs announced
in 2008 that future releases of the iPhone and iPod Touch would offer improved
game functionality. In an ironic development, Apple, which had not supported
game developers in its early years out of fear of its computers not being taken
seriously as business machines, was now staking a claim to a greater role in
the gaming business to go along with its move into telecommunications.

In 2003 Jobs was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. He put off
surgery for about nine months while he tried alternative medicine approaches.
In 2004 he underwent major reconstructive surgery, known as the Whipple
operation. During the procedure, part of the pancreas, a portion of the bile
duct, the gallbladder, and the duodenum are removed, after which what is left
of the pancreas, the bile duct, and the intestine is reconnected to direct the
gastrointestinal secretions back into the stomach. Following a short recovery,
Jobs returned to running Apple.

Throughout 2008 Jobs lost significant weight, which produced considerable
speculation that his cancer was back. (The average survival rate for patients
who have undergone Whipple operations is only 20 percent at five years.)
Perhaps more than those of any other large corporation, Apple’s stock market
shares were tied to the health of its CEO, which led to demands by investors
for full disclosure of his health—especially as the first reasons given for his
weight loss seemed insufficient to explain his sickly appearance. On January 9,
2009, Jobs released a statement that he was suffering from a hormonal imbalance
for which he was being treated and that he would continue his corporate duties.
Less than a week later, however, he announced that he was taking an immediate
leave of absence through the end of June in order to recover his health. Having
removed himself, at least temporarily, from the corporate structure, Jobs
resumed his previous stance that his health was a private matter and refused to
disclose any more details.

In June 2009 the Wall Street Journal reported that Jobs had received a liver
transplant the previous April. Not disclosed was whether the pancreatic cancer
he had been treated for previously had spread to his liver. The operation was
performed in Tennessee, where the average waiting period for a liver transplant
is 48 days, as opposed to the national average of 306 days. Jobs came back to
work on June 29, 2009, fulfilling his pledge to return before the end of June.
In January 2011, however, Jobs took another medical leave of absence.

Jobs announced his resignation as Apple's CEO on August 24, 2011.Jobs became chairman of the board and named
Tim Cook his successor. Jobs worked for Apple until the day before his death.

Jobs died at his California home around 3 p.m. on October 5, 2011, due to
complications from a relapse of his previously treated islet-cell
neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer, resulting in respiratory arrest. He had lost
consciousness the day before, and died with his wife, children and sister at
his side.

Karman, Tawakkul
b. 1979
Yemeni women's rights activist who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for
her role in leading a pro-democracy protest movement in Yemen.

Tawakkul Karmān (Tawakul Karman) (Tawakel Karman) (Tawakkol Karman) (Tawakel
Abdel-Salam Karman) received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her role in
leading the Yemeni pro-democracy protest movement. She shared the prize with
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, who were also recognized for leading
non-violent campaigns for women’s rights and democratic freedoms.

Karmān was born on February 7, 1979, into a politically active family in
Taʿizz, Yemen. When she was young, her family moved to Sanaa, where her father,
ʿAbd al-Salām Karmān, a lawyer, served as minister of legal affairs before
resigning in 1994 over the government’s war against secessionists in southern
Yemen. She graduated from the University of Science and Technology in Sanaa with
a degree in commerce in 1999 and later earned a master’s degree in political
science. After completing her education, Karmān began a career in journalism,
writing articles, producing documentary films, and disseminating news alerts
via text messages. When she encountered restrictions and threats from the
Yemeni government, Karmān and several of her colleagues founded Women
Journalists Without Chains in 2005 to advocate for women’s rights, civil
rights, and freedom of expression. In 2007, Karmān began staging weekly sit-ins
in Sanaa to demand a variety of democratic reforms. She continued the practice
for several years and was arrested multiple times for her activism. Although
Karmān was a senior member of the Iṣlāḥ (Reform) party, Yemen’s main Islamist
opposition party, she occasionally clashed with the party’s religious
conservatives. In 2010, for example, she criticized members of her own party
for opposing legislation to raise the legal marriage age for women to 17.

On January 23, 2011, as a protest movement known as the Arab Spring swept
through the Middle East and North Africa, shaking some of the region’s
longest-standing governments, Karmān was arrested after leading a small protest
in Sanaa against the government of ʿAlī ʿAbd Allāh Ṣāliḥ, the president of
Yemen. Her arrest sparked larger protests, which soon developed into mass
demonstrations against the Ṣāliḥ regime. Karmān, released the following day,
soon became a leader of the movement, helping to set up the protest encampment
on the grounds of Sanaa University, where thousands of protesters staged a
sit-in that lasted for months. For her role in leading protests, Karmān was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2011. At age 32, Karman was one of the
youngest-ever recipients of the prize.

Karzai, Hamid
b. 1957
President of Afghanistan.

Hamid Karzai (b. December 24, 1957, Kandahār, Afghanistan), Afghan politician
who was the first elected president of Afghanistan (2004– ).

Karzai was the son of the chief of the Popalzai Pashtuns, and both his father
and grandfather served in the government of Mohammad Zahir Shah. Under the
Soviet-imposed regime in the 1980s, the Karzai family left Afghanistan and
settled in Pakistan. Karzai attended Himachal Pradesh University in India,
earning a master’s degree (1982) in political science. During the Afghan War,
he worked with the mujahideen, who sought to overthrow the Soviet-backed
government, and often traveled to the United States to seek support for the
cause. When the communist government of Mohammad Najibullah fell in April 1992,
the mujahideen established a coalition government, with Karzai serving as
deputy foreign minister. In 1994, however, he resigned, tired of the infighting
within the government. The growing strife escalated until the mujahideen turned
on one another, and in the ensuing turmoil, the Taliban, an ultra-conservative
political and religious faction, came to power.

Although initially supportive of the Taliban and the order that it introduced
to the country, Karzai came to oppose the regime and again went into exile in
Pakistan. In July 1999 his father was assassinated, an act that he blamed on
the Taliban, and leadership of the Popalzai passed to Karzai. Shortly after the
September 11 attacks in 2001, the United States led a military campaign to
topple the Taliban and to capture terrorists that were based in the country.
Karzai returned to Afghanistan to rally support for the United States-led
mission, and by mid-November the Taliban regime had collapsed. To avert a
destructive power struggle, representatives from various Afghan groups, aided
by the international community, named Karzai chair of an interim
administration. He was sworn into office in late December 2001. In June 2002, a
Loya Jirga, a traditional Afghan assembly, chose Karzai as president of a
transitional government.

Karzai faced numerous challenges, including controlling the country’s powerful
traditional leaders and preventing the Taliban from recovering power. He also
sought to rebuild the war-torn country. Violence continued to plague
Afghanistan, and Karzai was the target of several assassination attempts. In
January 2004 a new constitution was approved that called for a directly elected
president. Later that year Karzai won the presidential election and was sworn
into office.

As Karzai entered office, he enjoyed strong support from Western allies, but he
faced enormous challenges. Continued violence and instability and an inability
to effectively build up Afghani institutions and provide basic services took
its toll on his popularity at home and abroad, as did allegations of government
corruption. The country was also plagued by an increase in drug trafficking—the
country’s opium-poppy harvest reached record levels in 2007—as well as by the
resurgence of the Taliban, which mounted attacks with increasing frequency. As
a result, pointed criticism, even from the United States, began to emerge.

Karzai’s term as president was due to expire in May 2009, and at that time he
was constitutionally obligated to step down. Because of logistical and security
reasons, however, the approaching presidential election—in which Karzai would
be a candidate—was postponed from May to August of that year. Karzai asserted
that for reasons of security he should remain in office until the election took
place. Critics were concerned that maintaining his position would give Karzai
an undue electoral advantage, and they urged him to step down as mandated by
the constitution and turn power over to an interim government. In March 2009
the Supreme Court ruled that Karzai could legally retain his position until the
election in August. Discontent with Karzai’s leadership produced a number of
presidential hopefuls, though Karzai was deftly able to neutralize or secure
the backing of most of those who might have challenged him.

The presidential election was held on August 20, 2009, and was followed by
weeks of political turmoil. In September a preliminary count awarded Karzai
almost 55 percent of the vote, thus indicating that he had won an outright
victory over his closest challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
With more than 2,000 complaints of fraud and intimidation, however, the United
Nations-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) ordered an audit of
suspect polling stations and began an investigation into fraud allegations. In
mid-October the ECC ruled that the fraudulent activity was pervasive enough to
invalidate votes from more than 200 polling stations, which included almost
one-third of Karzai’s votes. As a result, Karzai’s proportion of the vote
slipped to 49.7 percent, low enough to warrant a second round of elections.
Although Karzai initially resisted the call for a runoff, on October 20 he
conceded to a second round of polling between himself and Abdullah, which was
scheduled for November 7. Shortly thereafter, however, Abdullah withdrew from
the race, a decision he cited as being in the country’s best interest. The
runoff election was canceled, and shortly thereafter Karzai was inaugurated as
president for a second term.

Kasem, Casey
b. 1932
American radio personality and voice actor.

Kemal Amin "Casey" Kasem (b. April 27, 1932) is an American radio
personality and voice actor who is best known for being the host of the
nationally syndicated Top 40 countdown show American Top 40, and for voicing
Shaggy in the popular Saturday morning cartoon franchise Scooby-Doo.

Kasem, along with Don Bustany and Ron Jacobs, founded the popular American Top
40 franchise in 1970, hosting it from 1970 to 1988 and then from 1998 to 2004.
Between 1989 and 1998, he was the host of Casey's Top 40, Casey's Hot 20, and
Casey's Countdown. He is currently heard on Premiere Radio Networks' weekly
syndicated radio programs based on the American Top 40 franchise: Casey Kasem's
American Top 40: The '70s and Casey Kasem's American Top 40: The '80s are
replays of AT40 shows from the respective decades. He also hosted American Top
20 and American Top 10. Kasem retired from AT20 and AT10 on July 4, 2009 and
both shows ended on that day.

In addition to his radio shows, Kasem provided the voice of many commercials,
did many voices for Sesame Street, was the voice of NBC, helped out with the
annual Jerry Lewis telethon, and provided the cartoon voice of Robin in Super
Friends, Mark on Battle of the Planets, and a number of characters for the
Transformers cartoon series of the 1980s. In 2008, he was the voice of
"Out of Sight Retro Night" which aired on WGN America, but recently
was replaced by rival Rick Dees. After 40 years, Kasem retired from his role of
voicing Shaggy from Scooby-Doo in 2009, instead voicing Shaggy's father in the
2010 TV series, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.

Kasem's signature sign-off is "Keep your feet on the ground and keep
reaching for the stars."

Kasem was born in Detroit, Michigan to Lebanese Druze parents who emigrated
from the British Mandate of Palestine to Lebanon. After arriving in the United
States, they settled in Michigan, where they worked as grocers. Kasem is a
graduate of Northwestern High School in Detroit and Wayne State University.

Kasem was married to Linda Myers from 1972 to 1979, and they have three
children together: Mike, Kerri, and Julie. In 1980 Kasem married his second
wife actress Jean Thompson. Casey and Jean have a daughter, Liberty. The
"Little Miss Liberty" upscale baby cribs, designed by Jean Kasem and
best known for their appearances as prizes on The Price Is Right, are named
after Liberty.

Casey's son Mike Kasem is a voice-over actor who, in 1997, presented the MTV
Top 20 Video Countdown. From 2007-2009, Mike was the regular substitute host
for his father on American Top 20 and American Top 10. He also recorded new
segments for American Top 40 repeat broadcasts prior to Casey's departure from
Premiere Radio Networks.

Kasem is of Lebanese Druze heritage, and he is a vegan. He has also been active
in politics for years, supporting Lebanese-American and Arab-American causes
and politicians. Kasem has written a brochure published by the Arab-American
Institute entitled "Arab-Americans: Making a Difference."

Kasem supported Ralph Nader for president in 2000, supported progressive
Democrat Dennis Kucinich in his 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, and
narrated a campaign ad for George McGovern's 1984 presidential campaign.

In 1985, Casey Kasem was inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters
Hall of Fame radio division.

Khalid bin Mahfouz was the eldest son of Salim Ahmed bin Mahfouz, a Saudi who
rose from being an illiterate moneychanger to the founder of the first bank in
his country, the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia (NCB).

Mahfouz's father was Salem bin Mahfouz, who was six when he and his brothers
arrived in Mecca in 1912.Salem bin
Mahfouz was employed for many years exchanging currency for pilgrims to
Mecca.In 1949, he became a partner in a
lucrative currency business and quickly decided that the enterprise would be
much more successful if it were constituted as a bank.

Banks, however, were illegal because the Qur'an condemned the charging of
interest as usury.So the elder Sheik
Mahfous, who was illiterate, went to the Saudi royal family and argued that
Saudi Arabia should be self-sufficient in banking.At the time, the only two banks in the
kingdom were foreign.He proved
persuasive.The National Commercial Bank
was established in 1953, and it became the bank of the royal family at a time
when oil revenues soared.The bank laid
the foundation for Saudi Arabia to join the global financial community.

Salem bin Mahfouz handed management of NCB, the largest bank in the country, to
Khalid sometime in the 1980s.Khalid
took over the bank after his father died, while his eleven siblings and his
mother consolidated their inheritance into a large holding company.In 1990 Khalid bin Mahfouz acquired Irish
citizenship through inward-investment procedures.

Khalid bin Mahfouz was born in 1949 and received his primary and secondary
education in Jidda.When he joined
National Commercial Bank, he first worked as a cashier.Later, as an executive, he developed
securities trading, investment funds and corporate banking.

In 1977, he joined John Connally, a Washington insider and others to buy the
Main Bank of Houston.Connally introduced
Sheik Mahfouz to William Herbert Hunt and Nelson Bunker Hunt, Texas
billionaires who recruited Sheik Mahfouz to join them in an ultimately
unsuccessful scheme to corner the silver market.

Bin Mahfouz was married to Na'elah Kaaki, and they had three children,
Abdulrahman, Sultan, and Eman. His personal net worth was $3.2 billion in 2006,
making him one of the richest people in the world.His family fortune was worth over $4 billion.
He was involved in various business and charitable organizations throughout his
life.

Bin Mahfouz was a non-executive director of Bank of Credit and Commerce
International, a financial conglomerate later convicted of money laundering,
bribery, support of terrorism, arms trafficking, and many other crimes. Mahfouz
personally owned a twenty percent (20%) stake in BCCI. He was indicted by a New
York state grand jury for fraud but denied any culpability. The fraud charges
were settled for $225 million in lieu of fines.Bin Mahfouz claimed that he simply settled as a business decision rather
than using resources to fight further.

Mahfouz acknowledged donating over $270,000 to Osama bin Laden's Islamist
organization at the request of Osama's brother Salem bin Laden.However, the donation was made when Bin
Laden was fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.At the time, the United States was also supporting Bin Laden and the
insurgents there.

Khalid bin Mahfouz denied that NCB, his bank, was involved in funding an
al-Qaeda group. According to reports, high-placed Saudi businessmen transferred
millions of dollars through NCB to charities operating as fronts for al-Qaeda.
Mahfouz stated that he could not have been aware of every wire transfer moving
through the bank, and that he would not have allowed such transactions had he
known they were taking place. There is no evidence that Mahfouz was personally
involved in any of these transactions.

Khalid bin Mahfouz helped set up a charity organization called the Muwafaq
Foundation, Muwafaq being Arabic for "blessed relief". He funded this
charity with $30 million, and put his eldest son, Abdulrahman bin Mahfouz, on
the board of directors. In October of 2001, the U.S. Treasury Department named
Muwafaq an al-Qaeda front organization. Neither Khalid nor Abdulrahman were
accused of funding terrorism by the United States; however Yasin al-Qadi, a
Saudi national hired to run the charity, was named a supporter of terrorism by
and had his assets frozen by the U.S. Treasury Department.

Khalid bin Mahfouz claimed that he was not aware of the charity being used to
fund terrorists. He claimed further that he had initiated an investigation of
his own into Muwafaq's activities.

Khalid bin Mahfouz died on August 16, 2009.The cause was a heart attack.

Khalil, Mustafa
1920-2008
Egyptian premier.

As former secretary general of the ruling Arab Socialist Union party, Khalil
accompanied then-president Anwar Sadat in his historic visit to Jerusalem in
November 1977.The visit paved the way
for the negotiations mediated by then United States President Jimmy
Carter.Khalil, who served as Egypt's
prime minister from 1978 to 1980, then headed the Egyptian negotiations with
the Israelis at Camp David, which ended with the 1979 Camp David peace treaty
between Egypt and Israel, the first such treaty between an Arab country and
Israel.Khalil also served as deputy
chairman of the governing National Democratic Party.He stepped down in November of 2007.

Mustafa Khalil died on June 7, 2008 in Cairo.

Khamenei, Ali
b. 1939
Iranian cleric and politician.

Ali Khamenei, (b. July 15, 1939?, Meshed, Iran), is an Iranian cleric and
politician who served as president of Iran (1981–89) and as that country’s
rahbar, or leader, from 1989. A religious figure of some significance, Khamenei
was generally addressed with the honorific ayatollah.

Khamenei began his advanced religious studies at Qom under the most prominent
Shīʿite scholars of the day, including Ruhollah Khomeini. From 1963 he was
actively involved in protests against the monarchy, for which he was imprisoned
several times by Iran’s security services. Khamenei remained closely associated
with the exiled Khomeini during this time and immediately after the latter’s
return to Iran in 1979 was appointed to the Revolutionary Council. After its
dissolution he became deputy minister of defense and Khomeini’s personal
representative on the Supreme Defense Council.

A fiery orator in support of the pro-Khomeini Islamic Republican Party (IRP)
and an ardent advocate of the concept of velāyat-e faqīh (governance by the
religious jurist), Khamenei was injured in 1981 in one of a series of terrorist
bombings that devastated the IRP’s upper echelon. Following the death of the
secretary-general of the IRP in another such blast later that year, Khamenei
was appointed to fill the vacant position and within weeks announced his
intention to run for the presidency. He was elected president in October 1981
and re-elected in 1985. Although not considered one of Iran’s senior clerics—he
was then generally accorded the somewhat less lofty title of
hojatolislam—Khamenei rose to the position of rahbar following the death of
Khomeini in 1989. Khamenei enjoyed a good working relationship with President
Hashemi Rafsanjani in the early 1990s, but his relations were strained with
reformist president Mohammad Khatami, who served from 1997 to 2005.

Although Khamenei projected an official neutrality, subtle support for the
candidacy of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—a conservative former mayor of Tehrān and a
relative unknown—was detectable in some of Khamenei’s speeches prior to
Ahmadinejad’s victory in the 2005 presidential elections. Many found
Ahmadinejad’s success surprising, and it was clear that he would not have been
elected without Khamenei’s support. In spite of this support, during
Ahmadinejad’s presidency Khamenei sometimes publicly rebuked him, leading some
to speculate about the extent to which the president had fallen from Khamenei’s
favor.

In the presidential election of June 2009, Ahmadinejad faced several
challengers, each of whom was approved by the Council of Guardians—a body of
jurists that reviews legislation and supervises elections and half of whose
members were directly appointed by Khamenei. One candidate, Mir Hossein
Mousavi—a former prime minister (1981–89) around whom the country’s reformist
contingent had coalesced—mounted a surprisingly powerful campaign, especially
in its final days. Pre-election polls suggested a tight contest. Shortly after
the polls closed, however, Ahmadinejad was declared the clear victor with an
absolute majority of more than 60 percent, and Khamenei quickly endorsed the
results. Led by Mousavi, the opposition rejected the legitimacy of the outcome
and gathered to protest, with massive popular demonstrations in Tehrān and
elsewhere. Khamenei subsequently called for an official inquiry by the Council
of Guardians into the allegations of electoral irregularities. The decision was
followed shortly thereafter by an announcement by the Council of Guardians that
the vote would be subject to a partial recount. The motion was rejected by the
opposition, which had called for an annulment. Following nearly a week of
protests, Khamenei issued his first public response to the unrest, again
supporting Ahmadinejad’s victory and warning the opposition against further
demonstrations.

Khan, Ali Akbar
1922-2009
Sarod virtuoso.

Ali Akbar Khan, often referred to as Khansahib or by the title Ustad (master),
was a Hindustani classical musician of the Maihar gharana, known for his
virtuosity in playing the sarod. Khan was instrumental in popularizing Indian
classical music in the West, both as a performer (often in conjunction with
Sitar maestro Ravi Shankar), and as a teacher. He established a music school in
Calcutta in 1956, and the Ali Akbar College of Music in 1967, which is now located
in San Rafael, California and has a branch in Basel, Switzerland. Khan also
composed several classical ragas and filmscores.

Trained as a musician and instrumentalist by his father, Allauddin Khan, Khan
first came to America in 1955 on the invitation of violinist Yehudi Menuhin and
later settled in California. Khan was nominated for five Grammy Awards and was
accorded India's second highest civilian honor, the Padma Vibhushan, in 1989.
He also won the MacArthur Genius Grant and the National Endowment for the Arts'
National Heritage Fellowship.

Ali Akbar Khan was born on April 14, 1922, in the village of Shibpur, Comilla,
in present-day Bangladesh (then East Bengal), to revered musician and teacher,
Allauddin Khan and Madina Begum. Soon after his birth, Khan's family returned
to Maihar (in present day Madhya Pradesh, India) where his father was the
primary court musician for the Maharaja of the princely state.

From an early age, Khan received training from his father in various
instruments as well as vocal composition, but finally gravitated towards the
sarod. Allauddin was a perfectionist and a strict taskmaster, and Khan's
lessons started before dawn and often lasted 18 hours a day. Khan also learned
to play the tabla and the pakhavaj from his uncle, Aftabuddin Khan, who he
visited at Shibpur. During this period he met several prominent musicians, such
as the sarodist Timir Baran and flutist Pannalal Ghosh, who came to study with
his father. In later years, he was joined in his lessons by his sister
Annapurna Devi, who became an accomplished player of the surbahar, and fellow
student Ravi Shankar. Shankar and Annapurna Devi were married in 1941.

Of his training on the sarod, he wrote:

"If you practice for ten years, you may begin to please yourself, after 20
years you may become a performer and please the audience, after 30 years you
may please even your guru, but you must practice for many more years before you
finally become a true artist—then you may please even God."

Ali Akbar Khan, after years of rigorous training gave his debut performance at
a music conference in Allahabad in 1936, at the age of 13. Three years later,
in December 1939, he accompanied Ravi Shankar on the sarod during the latter's
debut performance at the same conference; this was the first of many
jugalbandis (duets) between the two musicians. In 1938 Khan gave his first
recital on All India Radio (AIR), Bombay (accompanied on the tabla by Alla
Rakha), and starting in January 1940, he gave monthly performances on AIR,
Lucknow. Finally in 1944, both Shankar and Khan left Maihar to start their
professional careers as musicians; Shankar went to Bombay, while Khan became
the youngest Music Director for AIR, Lucknow and was responsible for solo
performances and composing for the radio orchestra.

In 1943, on his father's recommendation, Khan was appointed a court musician
for the Maharaja of Jodhpur, Hanumant Singh. There, he taught and composed
music in addition to giving recitals and was accorded the title of Ustad by the
Maharaja. After the princely states declined with India's independence in 1947,
and after Hanumant Singh died in a plane crash in 1948, Khan moved to Bombay.

In Bombay, Khan won acclaim as a composer of several film scores, including
Chetan Anand's Aandhiyan, Satyajit Ray's Devi, Merchant-Ivory's The
Householder, and Tapan Sinha's Kshudista Pashan ("Hungry stones"),
for which he won the "Best Musician of the Year" award. Later in
1993, he would score some of the music for Bernardo Bertolucci's Little Buddha.

Beginning in 1945, Khan also started recording a series of 78 rpm disks (which
could record about 3 minutes of music) at the HMV Studios in Bombay. For one
such record he conceived a new composition Raga Chandranandan
("moonstruck"), based on four evening ragas, Malkauns, Chandrakauns,
Nandakauns and Kaushi Kanra. This record was a huge success in India and the
raga found a worldwide audience when a 22 minute rendition was re-recorded for
the Master musician of India LP in 1965 - one of Khan's seminal recordings.

Khan performed in India and traveled extensively in the West. In 1956, Khan
founded the Ali Akbar College of Music in Calcutta, with the mission to teach
and spread Indian classical music. He founded another school of the same name
in Berkeley, California in 1967 and later moved it to San Rafael, California.
In 1985 he founded another branch of the Ali Akbar College of Music in Basel,
Switzerland. Khan was the first Indian musician to record an LP album of Indian
classical music in the United States and to play sarod on American television.

Khan participated in a number of classic jugalbandi pairings, most notably with
Ravi Shankar, Nikhil Banerjee and violinist Lakshminarayana Subramaniam. A few
recordings of duets with Vilayat Khan also were made. Khan also collaborated
with Western musicians. In 1971 Khan performed at Madison Square Garden for the
the Concert for Bangladesh along with Ravi Shankar, Alla Rakha and Kamala
Chakravarty.Other musicians at the
concert included Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. An
album and a movie of the concert were later released.

Khan was based in the United States for the last four decades of his life. He
toured extensively until he was prevented from doing so by ill-health in the
period prior to his death from renal failure.Ali Akbar Khan died on June 18, 2009.

Ali Akbar Khan married three times and is survived by seven sons and four
daughters. His eldest son, Aashish Khan is also a renowned sarod player.

Khan was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1989, among other awards. He received a
MacArthur Fellowship in 1991. In 1997, Khan received the National Endowment for
the Arts' prestigious National Heritage Fellowship, the United States' highest
honor in the traditional arts. Khan received two Grammy nominations.

Khan, Feroz
1939-2009
Indian actor, film editor, producer and director in the Hindi film industry.

For his flamboyant style, with cowboyish swagger and cigar toting persona which
revolutionized the style of the otherwise conventional Bollywood hero, Feroz
Khan (September 25, 1939 - April 27, 2009), became known as the Clint Eastwood
of the East.

Feroz Khan appeared in over 50 films in the 1970s and 1980s, and became one of
India's best-loved heroes with his role in the 1980 hit film Qurbani, which he
also directed. Khan followed this multi-disciplinary achievement by directing
more successful films like Dayavan (1988) and Janbaaz (1986). He won the
Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award for Aadmi Aur Insaan in 1970, and was
honored with the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000.

Feroz Khan was born in Bangalore, India, on September 29, 1939. His father was
Sadiq Ali Khan Tanoli, who was a Pathan originally from the Ghazni province of
Afghanistan. His mother, Fatima, was of Iranian origin. He has four brothers
Sanjay Khan, Sameer Khan, Akbar Khan, and Shahrukh Ali Khan, and one sister,
Dilshad Begum. After his schooling in Bangalore, he went to Mumbai where he
made his debut as second lead hero in Didi in 1960.

For the next five years, Feroz Khan was forced to play the second to last lead
in most of the movies in which he appeared. Through the early 1960s and 1970s,
he made low-budget thrillers opposite starlets. In 1962, he appeared in an
English-language film titled Tarzan Goes to India opposite Simi Garewal. His
first big hit was in 1965, with Phani Majumdar's Oonche Log, where he was
pitted against screen idols Raaj Kumar and Ashok Kumar, and in which he gave a
notably sensitive performance. Again, in the same year, he played a sacrificing
lover in the mushy musical Arzoo, starring Sadhana. With this, Khan earned his
entry into the A-list of leading men. With the film Aadmi Aur Insaan (1969),
Khan won his first Filmfare award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He also
appeared alongside his real-life brother Sanjay Khan in the hit films Upaasna
(1967), Mela (1971) and Nagin (1976).

He turned into a successful producer and director so as to improve his career
opportunities as a leading man. He produced, directed and starred in the 1975
film Dharmatma which was the first Indian film to be shot in Afghanistan and
was also his first blockbuster hit as producer, director and star.Dharmatma also marked the appearance of
actress Hema Malini as a glamourous avatar. This movie was inspired by the
Hollywood film The Godfather. In 1976, Feroz Khan was one of the many actors to
appear in the cult classic horror film Nagin which also had his brother Sanjay
in one of the lead roles.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Feroz Khan was a leading Bollywood star. He
directed and starred in many of his films. He also starred in the Punjabi film
Bhagat Dhanna Jat (1974). The movie Qurbani (1980), with Zeenat Aman was the
biggest hit of his career and also launched the singing career of the iconic
Pakistani pop singer Nazia Hassan, with her memorable track 'Aap Jaisa Koi'.

In 1986, Feroz Khan directed and starred in Janbaaz which was a box office hit,
which some consider to be one of his best movies, featured an all star cast,
and was possessed of great songs and excellent cinematography. In 1988, Feroz
Khan directed and starred in Dayavan which was a remake of a South Indian film
titled Nayagan. After directing and starring in Yalghaar (1992), he took a long
break from acting for 11 years and took to producing, directing and even
editing a few films.

He launched his son Fardeen Khan's career with the 1998 film Prem Aggan which,
however, proved to be a box office disappointment.In 2003, he made his acting comeback as well
as produced and directed Janasheen (2003) which also starred his son Fardeen.
He always used performing animals in his films - a chimpanzee and lion were
used in Janasheen but People for Animals (PFA) Haryana chairman Naresh Kadyan
filed a complaint in the court of law at Faridabad for animal cruelty against
the Feroz Khan as the producer, director and actor. He starred alongside his
son again in Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena (2005) and made his last film appearance in
Welcome (2007).

Feroz Khan was ahead of his time in terms of his style which was uniquely
reflected in his movies and music. His movies like Qurbani and Dharmatma became
cult favourites in Hindi cinema.

In 1965, Feroz Khan married Sundari, a designer and member of the Page Three
circuit in Mumbai. They had two children together, Laila and Fardeen Khan (b.
1974). In 1985, after 20 years of marriage, he divorced his wife.

The son Feroz Khan, Fardeen Khan, married Natasha Madhwani, the daughter of his
occasional on-screen lover Mumtaz. His daughter Laila married the Indian tennis
player Rohit Rajpal.

Feroz Khan died on Monday, 27 April, 2009 at the age of 69, at his Bengaluru
farm house after being discharged from a Mumbai hospital, where he was
undergoing cancer treatment, after being diagnosed with lung cancer over a year
prior to his death.

Despite the complaint filed in by the People for Animals Haryana, Feroz Khan
was an animal lover and to show respect and as a homage and tribute to him, a
representative of the International Organization for Animal Protection - OIPA
in India - lit a candle for Feroz Khan upon his death.

Among the awards garnered by Feroz Khan are: Filmfare Best Debut Award for Didi
(1960); Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award for Aadmi Aur Insaan (1970);
Filmfare Nomination as Best Supporting Actor for International Crook (1974);
Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award (2000); Filmfare Nomination as Best Villain
for Janasheen (2003); Zee Cine Award for Lifetime Achievement (2008) and
"Pride of the industry" at the Max Stardust Awards (2009).

Khan, Ghulam Ishaq
1915-2006
President of Pakistan from 1988 to 1993.

Ghulam Ishaq Khan was born on January 20, 1915 in Bannu District of the
North-West Frontier Province to a Pashtun family.He completed his education in chemistry and
joined the Indian civil service prior to Pakistani independence.Upon independence, he was involved in
irrigation projects in West Pakistan, and later went on to join the Finance
Ministry, eventually becoming the Finance Minister.

In the 1985 elections, he won a Senate seat, shortly after which he was elected
as Chairman of the Senate of Pakistan.Immediately after the death of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1988, Khan became
acting President in accordance with the Constitutional rules of succession, and
was formally elected to the position in December of that year.He held the position of President until 1993.

Khan reportedly vetoed the appointment of former Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) Chief Hamid Gul as Army Chief, appointing the moderately reformist
general Asif Nawaz Khan Janjua instead.Khan's presidency also saw the resignation of General Rahimuddin Khan
from the post of Governor of Sindh, due to differences between the two after
Khan started restricting Rahimuddin's vast amount of legislative power.Khan's presidency was also marked by his use
of Eighth Amendment reserve powers to check the government.While the Prime Minister is the Head of
Government, Khan was able to dismiss the governments of both Benazir Bhutto (in
1990) and Nawaz Sharif (in 1993) on charges of corruption, mismanagement, and
nepotism, thereby triggering new elections, which the incumbent parties
lost.The second dismissal of government
exacerbated institutional and political opposition to Khan, leading to his
resignation in 1993.Despite coming to
an arrangement with the Pakistani government to be re-elected to the presidency
after the 1993 elections, Khan was eventually dropped as a candidate in favor
of Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari.

Khan subsequently retired from politics and avoided contacts with the
media.He died in Peshawar on October
27, 2006, after a bout with pneumonia.

Khashoggi, Adnan
1935-
Turkish businessman.

Born on July 25, 1935, the son of Muhammad Khashoggi, a doctor of
medicine.He was educated at Victoria
College in Alexandria, Egypt, Chico State College and Stanford University in
California.Khashoggi headed a company
called Triad Holding Company which amongst other things built the Triad Centre
in Salt Lake City, Utah.He was famed as
a broker of arms between United States firms and the Saudi government during
the 1960s and 1970s.Among his overseas
clients were defense contractors Lockheed Corporation (now Lockheed Martin
Corporation), Raytheon, Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation and Northrop
Corporation (which have now merged into Northrop Grumman).A shrewd business man, he established
companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein to handle his commissions as well as
developed contacts with such notables as Bebe Rebozo, a close associate of
President Richard Nixon.

In the 1980s, Khashoggi was implicated during the Iran-Contra Affair as a key
middleman in the arms-for-hostages exchange along with Iranian arms dealer
Manucher Ghorbanifar, and in a complex series of events, was found to have
borrowed money for these arms purchases from the Bank of Credit and Commerce
International (BCCI) with Saudi and United States backing.He was arrested in October 1988 in
Switzerland accused of concealing funds, held for three months and then
extradited to the United States of America where he was released on bail and
subsequently acquitted.

Kleber, Jean-Baptiste
1753-1800
A French general during the French Revolution and a governor of Egypt.

Appointed governor of Egypt in 1799 by Napoleon Bonaparte, Jean-Baptiste Kleber
spent most of the year prior to his assassination in suppressing the many
revolts against French rule.At the same
time, he negotiated with Sir Sidney Smith for the withdrawal of French troops
from the country.The convention that
the two men concluded was subsequently rejected by the British who decided to
maintain their formal intervention on behalf of the Ottomans.Kleber met this challenge and defeated an
Ottoman army advancing on Cairo in March 1800.He restored order in much of Cairo, and benefitted from the decision of
Murad Bey to accept the governorship of Upper Egypt on behalf of the
French.However, opposition to French
control continued and in June (June 14) 1800 Kleber was assassinated by a
member of the Janissary corps.He was
succeeded by Baron Menou.

Kordan, Ali
1958-2009
Iranian conservative politician who was impeached over a scandal.

Ali Kordan was born on October 23, 1958.He was an Iranian conservative politician who served in the
Revolutionary Guards, the judiciary and as deputy oil minister, before becoming
interior minister of Iran in 2008 for just 90 days. He was impeached by the
Iranian Parliament on November 4, 2008 after a doctorate he claimed to hold
turned out to be fraudulent.

A former revolutionary guard, Kordan was appointed deputy oil minister in
around October 2007. He had turned down the offer of the same position in 2006.

Kordan had previously served as deputy labor minister, president of Iran's
Technical and Vocational Organization, deputy head of the Islamic Republic of
Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) for provincial and parliamentary affairs, deputy head
of IRIB for administrative and financial affairs, and deputy minister for
culture and Islamic guidance for administrative and financial affairs.

During his tenure as the deputy head of IRIB in financial affairs, Ali Kordan
was accused of a high profile financial corruption (525 billion Tomans).
However, the Judiciary system did not charge him after a long investigation.

In 2008, President Ahmadinejad chose Kordan as the Minister of Interior.
However, during his confirmation debate in the Iranian parliament, questions
arose among MPs and in the media over his qualifications and over a doctorate
he claimed to have received. On August 5, 2008, Kordan was approved by the
Parliament for the position of Minister of Interior by "a relatively slim
margin" of around 160 of the 269 lawmakers present.

Kordan claimed to have an Honorary Doctorate in law from Oxford University.
When this was questioned he released a document stating that such a degree had
been confirmed on him in June 2000 and under-signed by three Oxford University
professors. A copy of the certificate was released and Alef, a website
"associated with one of Ahmadinejad's critics", pointed to
"typing errors, garbled English and misspellings".

Responding to an inquiry by Alef news agency, on August 11, 2008, Oxford
University denied it had awarded Kordan an honorary doctorate of law or any
other degree. Four days later the University published an official statement on
its website that the University had no record of Kordan having received any
degree, honorary or otherwise. Oxford noted that none of the professors whose
alleged signatures were on the certificate were working in the field of law,
and none of them would sign degree certificates. As a result, chairman of
Iranian parliament Ali Larijani initiated an investigation into the validity of
Kordan's degree. It was later revealed, according to the news service msnbc,
that Kordan did not receive two other degrees he had claimed, a bachelor's
degree and a master's degree from Iran's Open University.

Two days after the Oxford University response, the state news agency IRNA
reported that the Tehran prosecutors office announced that the investigating
Alef news website had been "banned based on complaints by legal
entities".It was reported that the
Alef News Website (Alef.ir), had been blocked by the Iranian
"authorities". As of August 27, 2008, the Ministry of Science,
Research and Technology of the Islamic Republic denied announcing any statement
on Kordan's Doctorate Degree.

On September 27, 2008, in a letter to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kordan
admitted that the degree was fake, explaining that he had been deceived by a
"person who claimed to represent Oxford University in Tehran". After
holding the degree for eight years he was astonished to learn that "the
university did not confirm (the degree) when my representative went
there". Kordan said his search for this fraudulent Oxford intermediary had
proven fruitless but that he had filed a complaint against the person, whom he
did not name, on September 14.Kordan
also accused the media of a smear campaign by portraying him as a
"terrorist".

On November 4, 2008, the Iranian parliament voted to impeach Interior Minister
Ali Kordan for lying about his credentials and presenting a fake degree from
Oxford University. Out of 247 MPs present, 188 voted to impeach Kordan, with 14
lawmakers against the motion and 45 abstentions.

Kordan died of multiple myeloma at Tehran's Masihe Daneshvari hospital on
November 22, 2009.He had also suffered
from influenza and a brain hemorrhage.

Kunjahi, Shareef
1915-2007
Punjabi poet.

Shareef Kunjahi was a leading writer and poet of Punjabi. He was among the
first faculty members of the Department of Punjabi Language at University of
Punjab in the 1970s and contributed to Punjabi literature as a poet, prose
writer, teacher, research scholar, linguist, lexicographer and translator.

Shareef was born in 1915 in Kunjah, a small town of Gujrat District in Punjab.
His father was a school teacher. Shareef completed his matriculation in 1930
from a school in Kunjah and higher secondary in 1933 at the Government
Intermediate College, Jehlum. By that time, he had started writing poetry and
was known as a progressive writer sympathetic to the Indian National Congress.
This affiliation became a hindrance for him to get police clearance for entry
level jobs in the government service. After getting fired from the army as a
clerk for failing to get the certificate of good character from police and his
other failed attempts to land a job, he went back to Kunjah to live with his
parents.

In 1943, he completed his Munshi Fazal and BA from Punjab University as a
private student and later completed teacher’s training from Lahore. He then
continued teaching at various schools until he obtained the degree of MA Urdu
in 1954, and of MA Persian in 1956. In 1959, he was hired as lecturer in
Persian language at Government College, Campbalpur. He was transferred to
Government College Jehlum from where he retired in 1973. From 1973 to 1980, he
taught at the newly established Punjabi Department at the Punjab University
Lahore.

Shareef Kunjahi died on January 20, 2007 and was interred in the compound of
Ghanimat Kunjahi’s mazar in Kunjah.

Although Shareef. wrote poetry in both the Urdu and Persian languages, and even
made a name as an Urdu poet quite early in his writing career, Punjabi was
always his first love. For an up-and-coming Muslim writer of that period,
especially among the early progressive writers and poets, adopting Punjabi for
his creative articulation was a rare phenomenon.

He became among the pioneers of modern Punjabi poetry from 1930s at about the
same time when Mohan Singh introduced secular themes and a new style in Punjabi
poetry. His first collection of Punjabi poetry Jagrate (sleepless nights) was
first published in Gurmukhi in East Punjab in 1958, and was not published in
Shahmukhi in West Punjab until 1965. It contained only 37 poems. His second
anthology Orak Hondi Lou (dimming light) was published in 1995.

Kunjahi’s poetry is a complete break from the qissa and Sufi traditions. Even
his earliest poems have all the elements of modern poetry: secularism,
expression of individualist experience, and awareness of social and political
changes around him. His deep sense of departure from the existing value system
was expressed in many of his early poems.

Without being overburdened by excessive symbolism or extreme emotions,
Kunjahi’s poetry is a realistic and balanced expression of his social
consciousness in a relatively simple and straightforward manner. He played a
crucial role in setting new directions for Punjabi poetry and he opened doors
for Punjabi poets to move away from the traditional style of writing poetry and
experiment with new modes and techniques.

Just like he had done in poetry, Shareef Kunjahi also broke new grounds in
Punjabi prose. It was through his translations in Punjabi of two books of
Bertrand Russell and Allama Iqbal’s lectures — ‘Reconstruction of Religious
Thoughts’ — among the numerous other translations, that he demonstrated that
Punjabi language is capable of eloquently communicating even the most complex
philosophical thoughts. He developed many new terms by creatively employing the
vast treasure of Punjabi vocabulary. Perhaps his masterpiece is his translation
of the Qur'an in idiomatic and fluent Punjabi of such a high order that it set
a new standard for writing Punjabi prose.

Shareef Kunjahi was among the earliest writers who employed modern techniques
of literary criticism. In a different field, his research in identifying many
linguistic similarities in the Punjabi and Scandinavian languages is another
pioneering piece of work.

Through his lifelong work on various aspects of Punjabi literature and
language, Shareef Kunjahi carried the burden of serving his language during a
time when most Muslim Punjabis had rejected their own language for all literary
and creative expression. Sharif Kunjahi enriched the Punjabi language in so many
different ways that his contributions are enshrined in the history of Punjabi
literature.

Kurdistan Workers Party

The Kurdistan Workers Party (in Kurdish: Partiya
Karkeren Kurdistan or PKK; in Turkish: Kurdistan
isci Partisi, also called KADEK, Kongra-Gel, and KCK) was a militant group
founded in the 1970s and was led by Abdullah Ocalan until his capture in
1999.The PKK's ideology was founded on
revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and Kurdish nationalism.The PKK's goal has been to create an
independent socialist Kurdish state in a territory that it claims as Kurdistan,
an area that comprises parts of south-eastern Turkey, northern Iraq,
north-eastern Syria and north-western Iran.Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran oppose such a change.Over time, the Kurdistant Workers Party
became an ethnic secessionist organization that used force and the threat of
force against both civilian and military targets for the purpose of achieving
its political goal.

The Kurdistan Workers Party was listed as a terrorist organization
internationally by a number of states and organizations, including the United
States, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union.Between 1984 and 2007, more than 37,000
people were killed in the conflict between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers
Party.

Laban, Ahmad Abu
1946-2007
Leader of the Islamic Society in Denmark.

Laban was born in Jaffa, Palestine in 1946.In 1948, his family emigrated to Egypt, and he grew up there.In 1969, Laban graduated as a mechanical
engineer.In 1974, he married his cousin
Inam.The couple had seven
children.

Laban studied Islamic theology with scholars in different Muslim
countries.He was employed in the
Persian Gulf oil industry from 1970 to 1982, and with a contracting company in
Nigeria from 1982 to 1984.He
contributed to Islamic projects in education in different states of Nigeria.

Laban emigrated to Denmark in 1984 and lived there for the rest of his
life.He came to work as a religious
advisor with the Islamic Society in Denmark, and was a member of the
Co-ordination Council of Imams in Europe.

Laban was thrust into the international spotlight during the controversy which
erupted in Denmark after the appearance of cartoons depicting the Prophet
Muhammad appeared in the conservative newspaper Jyllands-Posten.The twelve (12) cartoons, one depicting
Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb, offended many Muslims because
Islamic law (the shari'a) prohibits any depiction of the Prophet for fear that
it could lead to idolatry.Laban
described the cartoons as an attempt to insult and degrade the Prophet.He also accused Denmark of being
disrespectful to Islam and Muslim immigrants.At the time, in 2005 and 2006, Denmark had a population of 5.4 million
with Muslims accounting for about 210,000 of that number.

Laban angered many Danes by seeking support from the Middle East in his fight
against the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.In November 2005, he was one of the leaders of a delegation that toured
the Middle East to ask for diplomatic support, one of the factors that sparked
the widespread anger in the region in early 2006, and which set off large and
sometimes violent protests against Denmark in Muslim countries.Along with Akhmed Akkari, he authored the
Akkari-Laban Dossier which was used on that tour.

Jyllands-Posten later apologized for the cartoons, saying the purpose was not
to offend Muslims but to challenge a perceived self-censorship among artists
dealing with Muslim issues.

On January 19, 2007, the Islamic Society in Denmark announced that Abu Laban
had cancer.Abu Laban died of lung
cancer on February 1, 2007, at Hvidovre Hospital in Copenhagen.He was survived by his wife, Inam, and their
seven children.

Layla bint al-Minhal
7th century
Sahaba (companion) of Muhammad and the wife of Malik ibn Nuwayra.

Layla was the daughter of al-Minhal and was later also known as Umm Tamim.She was acclaimed as one of the most
beautiful women in Arabia.When she came
of age, she was pursued by many men, but rejected their advances.Finally, she met and married Malik ibn
Nuwayra.

Malik ibn Nuwayra was a chief of some distinction -- a warrior, noted for his
generosity, and a famous poet.Bravery,
generosity and poetry were the three qualities most admired among the
Arabs.During the Ridda wars, which
broke out in Arabia after the death of Muhammad, Abu Bakr sent his most
talented general Khalid ibn Walid into Najd with 4000 men, to submit the tribes
of the surrounding areas.Malik ibn
Nuwayra was guilty for his acts against the state of Medina.After the death of Muhammad, he broke in open
revolt against Medina.At the time of
Muhammad, he had been appointed as a Tax collector for the Tribe of Banu
Tamim.As soon as Malik heard of the
death of Muhammad, he gave back all the tax to his tribespeople, saying that
"Now you are the owner of your wealth."Moreover, he was to be charged because he
signed a pact with the self-proclaimed prophet Sajjah.This agreement stated that first they would
deal with local enemy tribes together, and then they would confront the state
of Medina.When Malik heard about Khalid
ibn Walid's victories against powerful Arab tribes, he ordered his tribesmen
not to engage the approaching Khalid ibn Walid in battle, to stay at home, and
hope for peace.

Malik himself apparently moved away across the desert with his family.Also, so as to prove himself loyal to the
state of Medina (the future Islamic empire), he collected the Tax and sent it
to Medina.His riders were stopped by
Khalid ibn Walid's army at the town of Battah.Khalid asked them about the signing of the pact with Sajjah.Malik's riders said that Malik had signed the
pact because he wanted revenge against the local enemy tribes.

When Khalid reached Najd, he found no opposing army, so he sent his cavalry to
nearby villages and ordered them to call the Azan (call for prayers) to each
party they met.Zirrar bin Azwar, a
group leader, arrested the family of Malik claiming that they did not answer
the call to prayer.

According to the Shi'a, when arrested, Malik was asked by Khalid about his
crimes.Malik's response was "your
master said this, and your master said that" referring to Abu Bakr.Khalid declared Malik to be a rebel apostate
and ordered his execution.Khalid bin Walid
killed Malik ibn Nuwayra and raped his wife, Layla bint al-Minhal.In response to the Sunni claim that Khalid
actually married Layla that same night, the Shi'a note that under Islam law,
Layla would have had to go through a waiting period (iddah), which is between
four months and one year, before she could re-marry.

According to the Sunni, in November 632, when Malik was arrested, he was asked
by Khalid ibn Walid about his crimes.Khalid's interpretation of Malik's response was "your master said this,
and your master said that" (referring to Muhammad).Khalid understood this to be a transparent
attempt by Malikto save his own
lifeby any means at his disposal.Khalid having clear evidence of Malik's
distributing the tax money on getting news of Muhammad's death and of his pact
with Sajjah, declared Malik an apostate and ordered his execution.Khalid ibn Walid ordered Malik's execution
because he knew that Malik had betrayed the Islamic state of Medina, and was a
traitor.

Additionally, according to the Sunni viewpoint, on the same night that Malik
was executed, Khalid married Malik's widow Layla bint al-Minhal.The marriage of Khalid to Layla later became
a controversial issue because there was a group of people who thought that
Khalid had killed Malik to get Layla.This group included Khalid's cousin Umar.Khalid was called by Caliph Abu Bakr to
explain the matter.After due
consideration, the Caliph decided that Khalid was not guilty.He did, however, upbraid his general for
marrying Layla and thus leaving himself open to criticism, and since there was
some possibility of a mistake, as certain people believed that Malik was a
Muslim, Abu Bakr ordered the payment of blood-money to the heirs of Malik.

Madani, Abdul Nasser
1965-
Muslim political leader and the founder of the political party People's
Democratic Party.

Abdul Nasser Madani also known as Abdul Nasser Maudani or simply Madani or
Maudany (born 1965, Sasthamkotta, Kerala) was a Muslim political leader and the
founder of the political party Peoples Democratic Party from Kerala, southern
India. Maudani organized an outfit known as the Islamic Sewak Sangh, which was
banned in 1993. Following the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, he launched the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), with the stated objective of
"Muslim-Dalit-backward caste" alliance. Madani had in the past been
charged for inflammatory speeches and had police cases against him for the
same, including one at Kozhikode in 1992.

In 1992, Madani became the target of an assassination attempt, allegedly by
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh activists, in which he lost his right leg. Madani
is largely viewed in a suspicious light by the non-Muslims of the state.
However, in some Muslim pockets in Kerala, Madani is looked upon as a hero and
a savior for standing up to Hindutva forces.

Maudani was arrested on April 8, 1998 in connection with 1998 Coimbatore
bombings in which 60 people were killed. He was indicted under various sections
of the Indian Penal Code - spreading communal hatred, criminal conspiracy, and
sedition. He was imprisoned for eight years in Coimbatore prison without any
trial or bail and was released on August 1, 2007 after being acquitted of all
charges. Madani publicly denied all types of fundamentalist activities, and
proclaimed himself to be secular. He also said that he repented for the mistake
he had committed in the past. He explained that there was a radical change in
his way of thinking during his imprisonment at Coimbatore jail.

However, Madani himself admitted his acquaintance with Lashkar-e-Toiba's South
Indian commander Thadiyantavide Naseer, the prime accused in the 2008 Bangalore
serial blasts, 2006 Kozhikode twin blasts and other cases related to
recruitment of Muslim youth as terrorists. But Madani denied any complicity in
those crimes while talking to press-persons. Madani’s wife Sufiya Madani was
arrested on terror charges in the Kalamassery bus arson case, which was
choreographed by Thadiyantavide Naseer; and for complicity in 2008 Bangalore
serial blasts.

A few close accomplices of Madani have been found guilty of attempting to
murder the former Kerala Chief Minister E. K. Nayanar,whose government had
nabbed Madani after the Coimbatore blasts.

The Kerala assembly on March 16, 2006, passed a unanimous resolution seeking
the release of Abdul Nasser Maudani, on “humanitarian” grounds.

In the 2009 general elections, Madani's PDP made an alliance with the Left
Democratic Front (LDF), a coalition headed by Communist Party of India
(Marxist) (CPI(M)); in an effort to tap Muslim votes. But the LDF showcased
poor performance, by winning only 4 seats out of 20.